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PKESENTJ-:i) BY 



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COPYRIGHT 1902 BY P. HOOK 



THE COWBOY OF EARLY DAYS 

As a youns man Mr. Roosevelt spent most of his time on the frontier y 
living the life of the cowboy and the frontiersman 



/ 

statesman Bbttlon 



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HUNTING TRIPS OF A RANCHMAN 

HUNTING TRIPS ON THE PRAIRIE 
AND IN THE MOUNTAINS 



BY 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 




PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE 
PRESIDENT THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT 
WITH THE CENTURY CO., MESSRS. CHARLES 
SCRIBNER'S SONS, AND Q. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



NEW YORK 

THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY 

MCMIV 



'c ^ o 



Copyright 1885 
By G^ p. PUTNAM'S SONS 



This edition is published under arrangement with 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, of New YorkandLondon. 






TO THAT 

KEENEST OF SPORTSMEN 

AND 

TRUEST OF FRIENDS 

MY BROTHER 
ELLIOTT ROOSEVELT 



CONTENTS 



HUNTING TRIPS OF A RANCHMAN 
CHAPTER I 

RANCHING IN THE BAD LANDS 

The Northern Cattle Plains — Stock-raising — Cowboys, 
their Dress and Character — My Ranches in the Bad 
Lands of the Little Missouri — Indoor Amusements — 
Books — Pack-rats — Birds — Ranch Life — The Round- 
up — Indians — Ephemeral Nature of Ranch Life — Foes 
of the Stockmen — Wolves, their Ravages — Fighting 
with Dogs — Cougar — My Brother Kills One — One 
Killed by Bloodhounds — The Chase One of the 
Chief Pleasures of Ranch Life — Hunters and Cow- 
boys — Weapons — Dress — Hunting-horses — Target 
Shooting and Game Shooting 5 

CHAPTER II 

W AT E RP OWL 

Stalking Wild Geese with Rifle — Another Goose Killed 
in Early Morning — Snow-goose Shot with Rifle from 
Beaver Meadow — Description of Plains Beaver — Its 
Rapid Extinction — Ducks — Not Plenty on Cattle 
Plains — Teal — Duck-shooting in Course of Wagon 
Trip to Eastward — Mallards and Wild Geese in 
Corn-fields — Eagle and Ducks — Curlews — Noisiness 
and Curiosity— Grass Plover— Skunks 50 

CHAPTER III 

THE GROUSE OF THE NORTHERN CATTLE PLAINS 

Rifle and Shot-gun — Sharp-tailed Prairie Fowl — Not 
Often Regularly Pursued — Killed for Pot — Booming 

A Vol. IV. 



2 Contents 

in Spring — Their Young — A Day After Them with 
Shot-gun in August — At that Time Easy to Kill 
— Change of Habits in Fall — Increased Wariness — 
Shooting in Snowstorm From Edge of Canyon — Kill- 
ing Them with Rifle in Early Morning — Trip After 
Them Made by My Brother and Myself — Sage-fowl 
— The Grouse of the Desert — Habits — Good Food — 
Shooting Them — Jack-rabbit — An Account of a Trip 
Made by My Brother, in Texas, After Wild Turkey 
— Shooting Them From the Roosts— Coursing Them 
with Greyhounds 74 

CHAPTER IV 

THE DEER OP THE RIVER BOTTOMS 

The White-tail Deer Best Known of American Large 
Game — The Most Difficult to Exterminate — A Buck 
Killed in Light Snow About Christmas-time — The 
Species Very Canny — Two "Tame Fawns"— Habits 
of Deer— Pets— Method of Still-Hunting the White- 
tail — Habits Contrasted with Those of Antelope — 
Wagon Trip to the Westward — Heavy Cloudburst 
— Buck Shot While Hunting on Horseback — Moon- 
light Ride 112 

CHAPTER V 

THE BLACK-TAIL DEER 

The Black-tail and White-tail Deer Compared — Different 
Zones where Game are Found — Hunting on Horse- 
back and on Foot — Still-hunting — Anecdotes — Rapid 
Extermination — First Buck Shot — Buck Shot from 
Hiding-place — Different Qualities Required in Hunt- 
ing Different Kinds of Game — Still-hunting the Black- 
tail a Most Noble Form of Sport — Dress Required — 
Character of Habitat — Bad Lands — Best Time for 
Shooting, at Dusk — Difficult Aiming — Large Buck 
Killed in Late Evening — Fighting Capacity of Bucks 
— Appearance of Black-tail — Difficult to See and to 
Hit — Indians Poor Shots — Riding to Hounds — Track- 



Contents 3 

ing — Hunting in Fall Weather — Three Killed in a 
Day's Hunting on Foot — A Hunt on Horseback — 
Pony Turns a Somersault — Two Bucks Killed by One 
Ball at Very Long Range 137 

HUNTING TRIPS ON THE PRAIRIE 
CHAPTER I 

A TRIP ON THE PRAIRIE 

The Prong-horn Antelope — Appearance, Habits, and 
Method of Hunting — Hunting on Horseback — Wari- 
ness, Speed, Curiosity, and Incapacity to Make High 
Jumps — Fawns as Pets — Eagles — Horned Frogs — Rat- 
tlesnakes — Trip on the Prairie in June — Sights and 
Sounds — Desolate Plains — Running Antelope — Night 
Camp — Prairie Dogs — Badgers — Skylarks — A Long 
Shot — Clear Weather — Camping Among Medicine 
Buttes — Sunset on Plateau 197 

CHAPTER II 

A TRIP AFTER MOUNTAIN SHEEP 

Spell of Bitter Weather — News Brought of Mountain 
Sheep — Start After Them — False Alarm About Bear 
— Character of Bad Lands — Description of Mountain 
Sheep or Big-horn — Its Wariness — Contrasted with 
Other Game— Its Haunts— The Hardest of All Game 
to Successfully Hunt — Our Trip — Cold Weather and 
Tiresome Walking — Very Rough Ground — Slippery, 
Ice-covered Crags — Ram Killed 239 

CHAPTER III 

THE LORDLY BUFFALO 

Extinction of the Vast Herds — Causes — A Veritable 
Tragedy of the Animal World — Sentimental and 
Practical Sides — Traces Left by Buffalo — Skulls and 
Trails — Merciless Destruction by Hunters and by 
Cattlemen — Development of Mountain Race of the 



4 Contents 

Buffalo— Buffalo-hunting— Noble Sport— Slight Dan- 
ger—A Man Killed— My Brother Charged— Adven- 
ture of My Cousin with a Wounded Buffalo — Three 
of My Men and Wounded Cow — Buffalo and Cattle — 
Hunting Them on Foot — Hunting on Horseback — My 
Brother in Texas — I Take a Trip in Buffalo Country — 
Wounded Bull Escapes — Miserable Night Camp — Miss 
a Cow in Rain — Bad Luck — Luck Turns — Kill a Bull 
— A Wagon Trip 261 

CHAPTER IV 

STILL-HUNTING ELK ON THE MOUNTAINS 

Former Range of Elk — Rapid Destruction — Habits — Per- 
secuted by Hunters — Other Foes — Lordly Game — Trip 
to Bighorn Mountains — Managing Pack-train — See Elk 
and Go into Camp — Follow up Band in Moccasins — 
Kill Two — Character of the Deep Woods — Sights 
and Sounds of the Forest — Blue Grouse — Snow — Cold 
Weather— Trout— Calling of Bull Elk— Killing Elk 
in Burned Timber — Animals of the Wilderness — Kill 
Great Bull Elk— Kill Another 293 

CHAPTER V 

OLD EPHRAIM 

Dangerous Game, but Much Less Dangerous than For- 
merly — Old-time Hunters and Weapons — Grisly and 
Other Ferocious Wild Beasts — Only Fights if Wounded 
— Anecdotes of Their Killing and Wounding Men — 
Attacks Stock — Our Hunting on the Bighorn Moun- 
tains — Merrifield Kills Black Bear — Grisly Almost 
Comes into Camp — Tracks of Grisly — Watch for One 
at Elk Carcass— Follow Him up and Kill Him_~Merri- 
field Kills One— Five Shot with Seven Bullets— She 
and Cub Killed — Return Home 321 

Addendum 348 



HUNTING TRIPS OF A RANCHMAN 

CHAPTER I 

RANCHING IN THE BAD LANDS 

THE great middle plains of the United States, 
parts of which are still scantily peopled by men 
of Mexican parentage, while other parts have been 
but recently won from the warlike tribes of Horse 
Indians, now form a broad pastoral belt, stretching 
in a north and south line from British America to 
the Rio Grande. Throughout this great belt of 
grazing land almost the only industry is stock-rais- 
ing, which is here engaged in on a really gigantic 
scale; and it is already nearly covered with the 
ranches of the stockmen, except on those isolated 
tracts (often themselves of great extent) from which 
the red men look hopelessly and sullenly out upon 
their old hunting-grounds, now roamed over by 
the countless herds of long-horned cattle. The 
northern portion of this belt is that which has been 
most lately thrown open to the whites; and it is 
with this part only that we have to do. 

The northern cattle plains occupy the basin of the 
Upper Missouri; that is, they occupy all of the 
land drained by the tributaries of that river, and by 
the river itself, before it takes its long trend to the 

(5) 



6 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

southeast. They stretch from the rich wheat farms 
of central Dakota to the Rocky Mountains, and 
southward to the Black Hills and the Big Horn 
chain, thus including all of Montana, northern 
Wyoming, and extreme western Dakota. The 
character of this rolling, broken plains country is 
everywhere much the same. It is a high, nearly 
treeless region, of light rainfall, crossed by streams 
which are sometimes rapid torrents and sometimes 
merely strings of shallow pools. In places it stretches 
out into deserts of alkali and sage brush, or into 
nearly level prairies of short grass, extending for 
many miles without a break; elsewhere there are 
rolling hills, sometimes of considerable height; and 
in other places the ground is rent and broken into 
the most fantastic shapes, partly by volcanic action 
and partly by the action of water in a dry climate. 
These latter portions form the famous Bad Lands. 
Cottonwood trees fringe the streams or stand in 
groves on the alluvial bottoms of the rivers; and 
some of the steep hills and canyon sides are clad with 
pines or stunted cedars. In the early spring when 
the young blades first sprout, the land looks green 
and bright ; but during the rest of the year there is 
no such appearance of freshness, for the short bunch 
grass is almost brown, and the gray-green sage 
brush, bitter and withered-looking, abounds every- 
where, and gives a peculiarly barren aspect to the 
landscape. 

It is but little over half a dozen years since these 
lands were won from the Indians. They were their 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 7 

only remaining great hunting-grounds, and toward 
the end of the last decade all of the northern plains 
tribes went on the war-path in a final desperate ef- 
fort to preserve them. x\fter bloody fighting and 
protracted campaigns they were defeated, and the 
country thrown open to the whites, while the build- 
ing of the Northern Pacific Railroad gave immigra- 
tion an immense impetus. There were great quan- 
tities of game, especially buffalo, and the hunters 
who thronged in to pursue the huge herds of the 
latter were the rough forerunners of civilization. 
No longer dreading the Indians, and having the 
railway on which to transport the robes, they fol- 
lowed the buffalo in season and out, until in 1883 
the herds were practically destroyed. But mean- 
while the cattlemen formed the vanguard of the 
white settlers. Already the hardy Southern stockmen 
had pressed up with their wild-looking herds to the 
very border of the dangerous land, and even into it, 
trusting to luck and their own prowess for their 
safety; and the instant the danger was even par- 
tially removed, their cattle swarmed northward 
along the streams. Some Eastern men, seeing the 
extent of the grazing country, brought stock out 
by the railroad, and the short-horned beasts became 
almost as plentiful as the wilder-looking Southern 
steers. At the present time, indeed, the cattle of 
these northern ranges show more short-horned than 
long-homed blood. 

Cattle-raising on the plains, as now carried on, 
started in Texas, where the Americans had learned 



8 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

it from the Mexicans whom they dispossessed. It 
has only become a prominent feature of Western 
Hfe during the last score of years. When the Civil 
War was raging, there were hundreds of thousands 
of bony, half wild steers and cows in Texas, whose 
value had hitherto been very slight; but toward 
the middle of the struggle they became a most im- 
portant source of food supply to both armies, and 
when the war had ended, the profits of the business 
were widely known and many men had gone into it. 
At first the stock-raising was all done in Texas, 
and the beef-steers, when ready for sale, were annu- 
ally driven north along what became a regular cat- 
tle trail. Soon the men of Kansas and Colorado 
began to start ranches, and Texans who were get- 
ting crowded out moved their herds north into these 
lands, and afterward into Wyoming. Large herds 
of yearling steers also were, and still are, driven 
from the breeding ranches of the South to some 
Northern range, there to be fattened for three years 
before selling. The cattle trail led through great 
wastes, and the scores of armed cowboys who, 
under one or two foremen, accompanied each herd, 
had often to do battle with bands of hostile Indians ; 
but this danger is now a thing of the past, as, indeed, 
will soon be the case with the cattle trail itself, 
for year by year the grangers steadily press west- 
ward into it, and when they have once settled in 
a place, will not permit the cattle to be driven 
across it. 

In the northern country the ranches vary greatly 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 9 

in size; on some there may be but a few hundred 
head, on others ten times as many thousand. The 
land is still in great part unsurveyed, and is hardly 
anywhere fenced in, the cattle roaming over it at 
will. The small ranches are often quite close to 
one another, say within a couple of miles; but the 
home ranch of a big outfit will not have another 
building within ten or twenty miles of it, or, indeed, 
if the country is dry, not within fifty. The ranch 
house may be only a mud dugout, or a "shack''' made 
of logs stuck upright into the ground; more often 
it is a fair-sized, well-made building of hewn logs, 
divided into several rooms. Around it are grouped 
the other buildings — log-stables, cow-sheds, and 
hay-ricks, an outhouse in which to store things, 
and on large ranches another house in which the 
cowboys sleep. The strongly made, circular horse- 
corral, with a snubbing post in the middle, stands 
close by; the larger cow-corral, in which the stock 
is branded, may be some distance off. A small 
patch of ground is usually inclosed as a vegetable 
garden, and a very large one, with water in it, as a 
pasture to be used only in special cases. All the 
work is done on horseback, and the quantity of 
ponies is thus of necessity very great, some of the 
large outfits numbering them by hundreds; on my 
own ranch there were eighty. Most of them are 
small, wiry beasts, not very speedy, but with good 
bottom, and able to pick up a living under the most 
adverse circumstances. There are usually a few 
large, fine horses kept for the special use of the 



lo Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

ranchman or foremen. The best are those from 
Oregon ; most of them come from Texas, and many 
are bought from the Indians. They are broken in 
a very rough manner, and many are in consequence 
vicious brutes, with the detestable habit of bucking. 
Of this habit I have a perfect dread, and, if I can 
help it, never get on a confirmed bucker. The 
horse puts his head down between his forefeet, 
arches his back, and with stiff legs gives a succes- 
sion of jarring jumps, often ^'changing ends" as he 
does so. Even if a man can keep his seat, the per- 
formance gives him about as uncomfortable a shak- 
ing up as can be imagined. 

The cattle rove free over the hills and prairies, 
picking up their own living even in winter, all the 
animals of each herd having certain distinctive 
brands on them. But little attempt is made to keep 
them within definite bounds, and they wander 
whither they wish, except that the ranchmen gen- 
erally combine to keep some of their cowboys rid- 
ing lines to prevent them straying away altogether. 
The missing ones are generally recovered in the 
annual round-ups, when the calves are branded. 
These round-ups, in which many outfits join to- 
gether, and which cover hundreds of miles of ter- 
ritory, are the busiest period of the year for the 
stockmen, who then, with their cowboys, work from 
morning till night. In winter little is done except 
a certain amount of line riding. 

The cowboys form a class by themselves, and 
are now quite as typical representatives of the wild- 



Ranching in the Bad Lands ii 

er side of Western life as were a few years ago 
the skin-clad hunters and trappers. They are mostly 
of native birth, and although there are among them 
wild spirits from every land, yet the latter soon 
become undistinguishable from their American com- 
panions, for these plainsmen are far from being so 
heterogeneous a people as is commonly supposed. 
On the contrary, all have a certain curious similarity 
to each other; existence in the West seems to put 
the same stamp upon each and every one of them. 
Sinewy, hardy, self-reliant, their life forces them 
to be both daring and adventurous, and the pass- 
ing over their heads of a few years leaves printed 
on their faces certain lines which tell of dangers 
quietly fronted and hardships uncomplainingly en- 
dured. They are far from being as lawless as they 
are described; though they sometimes cut queer 
antics when, after many months of lonely life, they 
come into a frontier town in which drinking and 
gambling are the only recognized forms of amuse- 
ment, and where pleasure and vice are considered 
synonymous terms. On the round-ups, or when a 
number get together, there is much boisterous, often 
foul-mouthed mirth ; but they are rather silent, self- 
contained men when with strangers, and are frank 
and hospitable to a degree. The Texans are perhaps 
the best at the actual cowboy work. They are abso- 
lutely fearless riders and understand well the habits 
of the half-wild cattle, being unequaled in those most 
trying times when, for instance, the cattle are stam- 
peded by a thunder-storm at night, while in the 



12 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

use of the rope they are only excelled by the Mex- 
icans. On the other hand, they are prone to drink, 
and when drunk, to shoot. Many Kansans, and 
others from the Northern States, have also taken 
up the life of late years, and though these scarcely 
reach, in point of skill and dash, the standard of the 
Southerners, who may be said to be born in the 
saddle, yet they are to the full as resolute and even 
more trustworthy. My own foremen were originally 
Eastern backwoodsmen. 

The cowboy's dress is both picturesque and ser- 
viceable, and, like many of the terms of his pursuit, 
is partly of Hispano-Mexican origin. It consists 
of a broad felt hat, a flannel shirt, with a bright silk 
handkerchief loosely knotted round the neck, trou- 
sers tucked into high-heeled boots, and a pair of 
leather "chaps" (chaperajos) or heavy riding over- 
alls. Great spurs and a large-calibre revolver com- 
plete the costume. For horse gear there is a cruel 
curb bit, and a very strong, heavy saddle with high 
pommel and cantle. This saddle seems needlessly 
weighty, but the work is so rough as to make 
strength the first requisite. A small pack is usually 
carried behind it; also saddle pockets, or small sad- 
dle-bags ; and there are leather strings wherewith to 
fasten the loops of the rawhide lariat. The pom- 
mel has to be stout, as one end of the lariat is twisted 
round it when work is to be done, and the strain 
upon it is tremendous when a vigorous steer has 
been roped, or when, as is often the case, a wagon 
gets stuck and the team has to be helped out by 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 13 

one of the riders hauling from the saddle. A ranch- 
man or foreman dresses precisely like the cowboys, 
except that the materials are finer, the saddle leather 
being handsomely carved, the spurs, bit, and revolver 
silver-mounted, the chaps of sealskin, etc. The re- 
volver was formerly a necessity to protect the 
owner from Indians and other human foes; this is 
still the case in a few places, but, as a rule, it is now 
carried merely from habit, or to kill rattlesnakes, 
or on the chance of falling in with a wolf or coyote, 
while not unfrequently it is used to add game to 
the cowboy's not too varied bill of fare. 

A cowboy is always a good and bold rider, but his 
seat in the saddle is not at all like that of one of 
our Eastern or Southern fox-hunters. The stirrups 
are so long that the man stands almost erect in 
them, from his head to his feet being a nearly 
straight line. It is difficult to compare the horse- 
manship of a Western plainsman with that of an 
Eastern or Southern cross-country rider. In fol- 
lowing hounds over fences and high walls, on a 
spirited horse needing very careful humoring, the 
latter would certainly excel; but he would find it 
hard work to sit a bucking horse like a cowboy, or 
to imitate the headlong dash with which one will 
cut out a cow marked with his own brand from a 
herd of several hundred others, or will follow at full 
speed the twistings and doublings of a refractory 
steer over ground where an Eastern horse would 
hardly keep its feet walking. 

My own ranches, the Elkhorn and the Chimney 



14 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

Butte, lie along the eastern border of the cattle 
country, where the Little Missouri flows through the 
heart of the Bad Lands. This, like most other 
plains rivers, has a broad, shallow bed, through 
which in times of freshets runs a muddy torrent, 
that neither man nor beast can pass; at other sea- 
sons of the year it is very shallow, spreading out 
into pools, between which the trickling water may 
be but a few inches deep. Even then, however, it 
is not always easy to cross, for the bottom is filled 
with quicksands and mud-holes. The river flows 
in long sigmoid curves through an alluvial valley 
of no greath width. The amount of this alluvial 
land inclosed by a single bend is called a bottom, 
which may be either covered with cottonwood trees 
or else be simply a great grass meadow. From the 
edges of the valley the land rises abruptly in steep 
high buttes whose crests are sharp and jagged. 
This broken country extends back from the river 
for many miles, and has been called always, by In- 
dians, French voyageurs, and American trappers 
alike, the ''Bad Lands," partly from its dreary and 
forbidding aspect and partly from the difliculty ex- 
perienced in traveling through it. Every few miles 
it is crossed by creeks which open into the Little 
Missouri, of which they are simply repetitions in 
miniature, except that during most of the year they 
are almost dry, some of them having in their beds 
here and there a never-failing spring or muddy 
alkaline-water hole. From these creeks run coulies, 
or narrow, winding valleys, through which water 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 15 

flows when the snow melts; their bottoms contain 
patches of brush, and they lead back into the heart 
of the Bad Lands. Some of the buttes spread out 
into level plateaus, many miles in extent; others 
form chains, or rise as steep isolated masses. Some 
are of volcanic origin, being composed of masses 
of scoria ; the others, of sandstone or clay, are worn 
by water into the most fantastic shapes. In color- 
ing they are as bizarre as in form. Among the level, 
parallel strata which make up the land are some 
of coal. When a coal vein gets on fire it makes 
what is called a burning mine, and the clay above it 
is turned into brick; so that where water wears 
away the side of a hill sharp streaks of black and 
red are seen across it, mingled with the grays, pur- 
ples, and browns. Some of the buttes are overgrown 
with gnarled, stunted cedars or small pines, and they 
are all cleft through and riven in every direction by 
deep, narrow ravines, or by canyons with perpen- 
dicular sides. 

In spite of their look of savage desolation, the 
Bad Lands make a good cattle country, for there is 
plenty of nourishing grass and excellent shelter 
from the winter storms. The cattle keep close to 
them in the cold months, while in the summer time 
they wander out on the broad prairies stretching 
back of them, or come down to the river bottoms. 

My home ranch house stands on the river brink. 
From the lowy long veranda, shaded by leafy cotton- 
woods, one looks across sand-bars and shallows to 
a strip of meadowland, behind which rises a line 



1 6 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

of sheer cliffs and grassy plateaus. This veranda is 
a pleasant place in the summer evenings when a cool 
breeze stirs along the river and blows in the faces 
of the tired men, who loll back in their rocking-chairs 
(what true American does not enjoy a rocking- 
chair?), book in hand — though they do not often 
read the books, but rock gently to and fro, gazing 
sleepily out at the weird-looking buttes opposite, 
until their sharp outlines grow indistinct and pur- 
ple in the after-glow of the sunset. The story-high 
house of hewn logs is clean and neat, with many 
rooms, so that one can be alone if one wishes to. 
The nights in summer are cool and pleasant, and 
there are plenty of bear-skins and buffalo robes, 
trophies of our own skill, with which to bid defiance 
to the bitter cold of winter. In summer time we are 
not much within doors, for we rise before dawn and 
work hard enough to be willing to go to bed soon 
after nightfall. The long winter evenings are spent 
sitting round the hearthstone, while the pine logs 
roar and crackle, and the men play checkers or 
chess, in the firelight. The rifles stand in the cor- 
ners of the room or rest across the elk antlers which 
jut out from over the fireplace. From the deer 
horns ranged along the walls and thrust into the 
beams and rafters hang heavy overcoats of wolf- 
skin or coon-skin, and otter-fur or beaver-fur caps 
and gauntlets. Rough board shelves hold a num- 
ber of books, without which some of the evenings 
would be long indeed. No ranchman who loves 
sport can afford to be without Van Dyke's "Still 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 17 

Hunter," Dodge's "Plains of the Great West," or 
Caton's ''Deer and Antelope of America"; and 
Coues' ''Birds of the Northwest" will be valued if 
he cares at all for natural history. A Western 
plainsman is reminded every day, by the names of 
the prominent landmarks among which he rides, 
that the country was known to men who spoke 
French long before any of his own kinsfolk came 
to it, and hence he reads with a double interest 
Parkman's histories of the early Canadians. As 
for Irving, Hawthorne, Cooper, Lowell, and the 
other standbys, I suppose no man, East or West, 
would willingly be long without them; while for 
lighter reading there are dreamy Ik Marvel, Bur- 
roughs's breezy pages, and the quaint, pathetic char- 
acter-sketches of the Southern writers — Cable, Crad- 
dock, Macon, Joel Chandler Harris, and sweet 
Sherwood Bonner. And when one is in the Bad 
Lands he feels as if they somehow look just exactly 
as Poe's tales and poems sound. 

By the way, my books have some rather unex- 
pected foes, in the shape of the pack rats. These 
are larger than our house rats, with soft gray fur, 
big eyes, and bushy tails, like a squirrel's ; they are 
rather pretty beasts and very tame, often coming 
into the shacks and log-cabins of the settlers. Wood- 
men and plainsmen, in their limited vocabulary, 
make great use of the verb "pack," which means 
to carry, more properly to carry on one's back ; and 
these rats were christened pack rats, on account of 
their curious and inveterate habit of dragging off 



1 8 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

to their holes every object they can possibly move. 
From the hole of one, underneath the wall of a hut, 
I saw taken a small revolver, a hunting-knife, two 
books, a fork, a small bag, and a tin cup. The little 
shack mice are much more common than the rats, 
and among them there is a wee pocket-mouse, with 
pouches on the outside of its little cheeks. 

In the spring, when the thickets are green, the 
hermit thrushes sing sweetly in them; when it is 
moonlig'ht, the volul^le, cheery notes of the thrash- 
ers or brown thrushes can be heard all night long. 
One of our sweetest, loudest songsters is the 
meadow-lark ; this I could hardly get used to at first, 
for it looks exactly like the Eastern meadow-lark, 
which utters nothing but a harsh, disagreeable chat- 
ter. But the plains air seems to give it a voice, and 
it will perch on the top of a bush or tree and sing 
for hours in rich, bubbling tones. Out on the prairie 
there are several kinds of plains sparrows which 
sing very brightly, one of them hovering in the 
air all the time, like a bobolink. Sometimes in the 
early morning, when crossing the open, grassy pla- 
teaus, I have heard the prince of them all, the Mis- 
souri skylark. The skylark sings on the wing, soar- 
ing overhead and mounting in spiral curves until 
it can hardly be seen, while its bright, tender strains 
never cease for a moment. I have sat on my horse 
and listened to one singing for a quarter of an hour 
at a time without stopping. There is another bird 
also which sings on the wing, though I have not seen 
the habit put down in the books. One bleak March 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 19 

day, when snow covered the ground and the shaggy 
ponies crowded about the empty corral, a flock of 
snow-buntings came famiharly round the cow-shed, 
clamoring over the ridge-pole and roof. Every few 
moments one of them would mount into the air, 
hovering about with quivering wings and warbling 
a loud, merry song with some very sweet notes. 
They were a most welcome little group of guests, 
and we were sorry when, after loitering around a 
day or two, they disappeared toward their breeding- 
haunts. 

In the still fall nights, if we lie awake we can 
listen to the clanging cries of the water-fowl, as their 
flocks speed southward; and in cold weather the 
coyotes occasionally come near enough for us to 
hear their uncanny wailing. The larger wolves, too, 
now and then join in, with a kind of deep, dismal 
howling; but this melancholy sound is more often 
heard when out camping than from the ranch 
house. 

The charm of ranch life comes in its freedom, 
and the vigorous, open-air existence it forces a man 
to lead. Except when hunting in bad ground, the 
whole time away from the house is spent in the sad- 
dle, arid there are so many ponies that a fresh one 
can always be had. These ponies are of every size 
and disposition, and rejoice in names as different 
as their looks. Hackamore, Wire Fence, Steel- 
Trap, War Cloud, Pinto, Buckskin, Circus, and 
Standing Jimmie are among those that, as I write, 
are running frantically round the corral in the vain 



20 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

effort to avoid the rope, wielded by the dexterous 
and sinewy hand of a broad-hatted cowboy. 

A ranchman is kept busy most of the time, but 
his hardest work comes during the spring and fall 
round-ups, when the calves are branded or the beeves 
gathered for market. Our round-up district includes 
the Beaver and Little Beaver creeks (both of which 
always contain running water, and head up toward 
each other), and as much of the river, nearly two 
hundred miles in extent, as lies between their 
mouths. All the ranches along the line of these 
two creeks and the river space between join in 
sending from one to three or four men to the round- 
up, each man taking eight ponies ; and for every six 
of seven men there will be a four-horse wagon to 
carry the blankets and mess kit. The whole, includ- 
ing perhaps forty or fifty cowboys, is under the head 
of one first-class foreman, styled the captain of the 
round-up. Beginning at one end of the line the 
round-up works along clear to the other. Starting 
at the head of one creek, the wagons and the herd 
of spare ponies go down it ten or twelve miles, while 
the cowboys, divided into small parties, scour the 
neighboring country, covering a great extent of 
territory, and in the evening come into the appointed 
place with all the cattle they have seen. This big 
herd, together with the pony herd, is guarded and 
watched all night, and driven during the day. At 
each home-ranch (where there is always a large 
corral fitted for the purpose) all the cattle of that 
brand are cut from the rest of the herd, which is 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 21 

to continue its journey; and the cows and calves 
are driven into the corral, where the latter are 
roped, thrown, and branded. In throwing the rope 
from horseback, the loop, held in the right hand, is 
swung round and round the head by a motion of the 
wrist; when on foot, the hand is usually held by 
the side, the loop dragging on the ground. It is 
a pretty sight to see a man who knows how use the 
rope; again and again an expert will catch fifty 
animals by the leg without making a misthrow. 
But unless practice is begun very young it is hard 
to become proficient. 

Cutting out cattle, next to managing a stampeded 
herd at night, is that part of the cowboy's work 
needing the boldest and most skilful horsemanship. 
A young heifer or steer is very loth to leave the 
herd, always tries to break back into it, can run 
like a deer, and can dodge like a rabbit ; but a thor- 
ough cattle pony enjoys the work as much as its 
rider, and follows a beast like a four-footed fate 
through every double and turn. The ponies for the 
cutting-out or afternoon work are small and quick; 
those used for the circle-riding in the morning have 
need rather to be strong and rangey. 

The work on a round-up is very hard, but al- 
though the busiest it is also the pleasantest part 
of a cowboy's existence. His food is good, though 
coarse, and his sleep is sound indeed ; while the work 
is very exciting and is done in company, under the 
stress of an intense rivalry between all the men, 
both as to their own skill, and as to the speed and 



22 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

training of their horses. CKimsiness, and still more 
the slightest approach to timidity, expose a man to the 
roughest and most merciless raillery; and the unfit 
are weeded out by a very rapid process of natural 
selection. When the work is over for the day 
the men gather round the fire for an hour or two to 
sing songs, talk, smoke, and tell stories ; and he who 
has a good voice, or, better still, can play a fiddle or 
banjo, is sure to receive his meed of most sincere 
homage. 

Though the ranchman is busiest during the round- 
up, yet he is far from idle at other times. He rides 
round among the cattle to see if any are sick, visits 
any outlying camp of his men, hunts up any band 
of ponies which may stray — and they are always 
straying, — superintends the haying, and, in fact, 
does not often find that he has too much leisure 
time on his hands. Even in winter he has work 
which must be done. His ranch supplies milk, but- 
ter, eggs, and potatoes, and his rifle keeps him, at 
least intermittently, in fresh meat ; but coffee, sugar, 
flour, and whatever else he may want, have to be 
hauled in, and this is generally done when the ice 
will bear. Then firewood must be chopped; or, if 
there is a good coal vein, as on my ranch, the coal 
must be dug out and hauled in. Altogether, though 
the ranchman will have time enough to take shooting 
trips, he will be very far from having time to make 
shooting a business, as a stranger who comes for 
nothing else can afford to do. 

There are now no Indians left in my immediate 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 23 

neighborhood, though a small party of harmless 
Grosventres occasionally passes through; yet it is 
but six years since the Sioux surprised and killed 
five men in a log station just south of me, where the 
Fort Keogh trail crosses the river; and two years 
ago, when I went down on the prairies toward the 
Black Hills, there was still danger from Indians, 
That summer the buffalo hunters had killed a couple 
of Crows, and while we were on the prairie a long- 
range skirmish occurred near us between some 
Cheyennes and a number of cowboys. In fact, we 
ourselves were one day scared by what we thought 
to be a party of Sioux ; but on riding toward them 
they proved to be half-breed Crees, who were more 
afraid of us than we were of them. 

During the past century a good deal of senti- 
mental nonsense has been talked about our taking the 
Indians' land. Now, I do not mean to say for a mo- 
ment that gross wrong has not been done the In- 
dians, both by Government and individuals, again 
and again. The Government makes promises im- 
possible to perform, and then fails to do even what 
it might toward their fulfilment; and where brutal 
and reckless frontiersmen are brought into contact 
with a set of treacherous, revengeful, and fiendishly 
cruel savages a long series of outrages by both sides 
is sure to follow. But as regards taking the land, 
at least from the Western Indians, the simple truth 
is that the latter never had any real ownership in 
it at all. Where the game was plentiful, there they 
hunted; they followed it when it moved away to 



24 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

new hunting-grounds, unless they were prevented 
by stronger rivals ; and to most of the land on which 
we found them they had no stronger claim than that 
of having a few years previously butchered the 
original occupants. When my cattle came to the 
Little Missouri the region was only inhabited by a 
score or so of white hunters; their title to it was 
quite as good as that of most Indian tribes to the 
lands they claim ; yet nobody dreamed of saying that 
these hunters owned the country. Each could even- 
tually have kept his own claim of i6o acres, and 
no more. The Indians should be treated in just the 
same way that we treat the white settlers. Give 
each his little claim; if, as would generally happen, 
he declined this, why then let him share the fate of 
the thousands of white hunters and trappers who 
have lived on the game that the settlement of the 
country has exterminated, and let him, like these 
whites, who will not work, perish from the face of 
the earth which he cumbers. 

The doctrine seems merciless, and so it is; but it 
is just and rational for all that. It does not do to 
be merciful to a few, at the cost of justice to the 
many. The cattlemen at least keep herds and build 
houses on the land; yet I would not for a moment 
debar settlers from the right of entry to the cattle 
country, though their coming in means in the end 
the destruction of us and our industry. 

For we ourselves, and the life that we lead, will 
shortly pass away from the plains as completely 
as the red and white hunters who have vanished 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 25 

from before our herds. The free, open-air hfe of the 
ranchman, the pleasantest and healthiest hfe in 
America, is from its very nature ephemeral. The 
broad and boundless prairies have already been 
bounded and will soon be made narrov^. It is 
scarcely a figure of speech to say that the tide of 
white settlement during the last few years has risen 
over the West like a flood; and the cattlemen are 
but the spray from the crest of the wave, thrown far 
in advance, but soon to be overtaken. As the set- 
tlers throng into the lands and seize the good ground, 
especially that near the streams, the great fenceless 
ranches, where the cattle and their mounted herds- 
men wandered unchecked over hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres, will be broken up and divided into 
corn land, or else into small grazing farms where a 
few hundred head of stock are closely watched and 
taken care of. Of course the most powerful ranches, 
owned by wealthy corporations or individuals, and 
already firmly rooted in the soil, will long resist this 
crowding; in places where the ground is not suited 
to agriculture, or where, through the old Spanish 
land-grants, title has been acquired to a great tract 
of territory, cattle ranching will continue for a 
long time, though in a greatly modified form; else- 
where I doubt if it outlasts the present century. 
Immense sums of money have been made at it in the 
past, and it is still fairly profitable; but the good 
grounds (aside from those reserved for the Indians) 
are now almost all taken up, and it is too late for 
new men to start at it on their own account, unless 

B Vol. iV. 



26 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

in exceptional cases, or where an Indian reservation 
is thrown open. Those that are now in wiU continue 
to make money ; but most of those who hereafter take 
it up will lose. 

The profits of the business are great; but the 
chances for loss are great also. A winter of unusual 
severity will work sad havoc among the young 
cattle, especially the heifers ; sometimes a disease like 
the Texas cattle fever will take off a whole herd ; and 
many animals stray and are not recovered. In fall, 
when the grass is like a mass of dry and brittle tin- 
der, the fires do much damage, reducing the prairies 
to blackened deserts as far as the eye can see^ and 
destroying feed which would keep many thousand 
head of stock during winter. Then we hold in 
about equal abhorrence the granger who may come 
in to till the land, and the sheep-owner who drives 
his flocks over it. The former will gradually fill up 
the country to our own exclusion, while the latter's 
sheep nibble the grass off so close to the ground as 
to starve out all other animals. 

Then we suffer some loss — in certain regions very 
severe loss — from wild beasts, such as cougars, 
wolves, and lynxes. The latter, generally called 
* 'bob-cats," merely make inroads on the hen-roosts 
(one of them destroyed half my poultry, coming 
night after night with most praiseworthy regular- 
ity), but the cougars and wolves destroy many 
cattle. 

The wolf is not very common with us; nothing 
like as plentiful as the little coyote. A few years 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 27 

ago both wolves and coyotes were very numerous 
on the plains, and as Indians and hunters rarely mo- 
lested them, they were then very unsuspicious. But 
all this is changed now. When the cattlemen came 
in they soon perceived in the wolves their natural 
foes, and followed them unrelentingly. They shot 
at and chased them on all occasions, and killed great 
numbers by poisoning; and as a consequence the 
comparatively few that are left are as wary and 
cunning beasts as exist anywhere. They hardly ever 
stir abroad by day, and hence are rarely shot or 
indeed seen. During the last three years these 
brutes have killed nearly a score of my cattle, and 
in return we have poisoned six or eight wolves and 
a couple of dozen coyotes; yet in all our riding we 
have not seen so much as a single wolf, and only 
rarely a coyote. The coyotes kill sheep and occa- 
sionally very young calves, but never meddle with 
anything larger. The stockman fears only the 
large wolves. 

According to my experience, the wolf is rather 
solitary. A single one or a pair will be found by 
themselves, or possibly with one or more well-grown 
young ones, and will then hunt over a large tract 
where no other wolves will be found; and as they 
wander very far, and as their melancholy bowlings 
have a most ventriloquial effect, they are often 
thought to be much more plentiful than they are. 
During the daytime they lie hid in caves or in some 
patch of bush, and will let a man pass right by them 
without betraying their presence. Occasionally 



28 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

somebody runs across them by accident. A neigh- 
boring ranchman to me once stumbled, while riding 
an unshod pony, right into the midst of four wolves 
who were lying in some tall, rank grass, and shot 
one with his revolver and crippled another before 
they could get away. But such an accident as this 
is very rare; and when, by any chance, the wolf is 
himself abroad in the daytime he keeps such a sharp 
lookout, and is so wary, that it is almost impossible 
to get near him, and he gives every human being a 
wide berth. At night it is different. The wolves 
then wander far and wide, often coming up round 
the out-buildings of the ranches ; I have seen in light 
snow the tracks of two that had walked round the 
house within fifty feet of it. I have never heard of 
an instance where a man was attacked or threatened 
by them, but they will at times kill every kind of 
domestic animal. They are fond of trying to catch 
young foals, but do not often succeed, for the mares 
and foals keep together in a kind of straggling band, 
and the foal is early able to run at good speed for 
a short distance. When attacked, the mare and foal 
dash off toward the rest of the band, which gathers 
together at once, the foals pressing into the middle 
and the mares remaining on the outside, not In a 
ring with their heels out, but moving In and out 
and forming a solid mass Into which the wolves do 
not venture. Full-grown horses are rarely mo- 
lested, while a stallion becomes himself the assailant. 
In early spring, when the cows begin to calve, the 
wolves sometimes wait upon the herds as they did 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 29 

of old on the buffalo, and snap up any calf that strays 
away from its mother. When hard pressed by hun- 
ger they will kill a steer or a heifer, choosing the 
bitterest and coldest night to make the attack. The 
prey is invariably seized by the haunch or flank, and 
its entrails afterward torn out; while a cougar, on 
the contrary, grasps the neck or throat. Wolves 
have very strong teeth and jaws and inflict a most 
severe bite. They will in winter come up to the 
yards and carry away a sheep, pig, or dog without 
much difficulty; I have known one which had tried 
to seize a sheep and been prevented by the sheep 
dogs to canter off with one of the latter instead. 
But a spirited dog will always attack a w^olf. On 
the ranch next below mine there was a plucky bull- 
terrier, weighing about twenty-five pounds, who lost 
his life owing to his bravery. On one moonlight 
night three wolves came round the stable, and the 
terrier sallied out promptly. He made such a quick 
rush as to take his opponents by surprise, and seized 
one by the throat; nor did he let go till the other 
two tore him almost asunder across the loins. Bet- 
ter luck attended a large mongrel called a sheep dog 
by his master, but whose blood was apparently about 
equally derived from collie, Newfoundland, and bull- 
dog. He was a sullen, but very intelligent and de- 
termined brute, powerfully built and with strong 
jaws, and though neither as tall nor as heavy as a 
wolf he had yet killed two of these animals single- 
handed. One of them had come into the farmyard 
at night, and had taken a young pig, whose squeals 



30 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

roused everybody. The wolf loped off with his 
booty, the dog running after and overtaking him in 
the darkness. The struggle was short, for the dog 
had seized the wolf by the throat and the latter 
could not shake him off, though he made the most 
desperate efforts, rising on his hind legs and press- 
ing the dog down with his forepaws. This time the 
victor escaped scatheless, but in his second fight, 
when he strangled a still larger wolf, he was se- 
verely punished. The wolf had seized a sheep, when 
the dog, rushing on him, caused him to leave his 
quarry. Instead of running he turned to bay at 
once, taking off one of the assailant's ears with a 
rapid snap. The dog did not get a good hold, and 
the wolf scored him across the shoulders and flung 
him off. They then faced each other for a minute 
and at the next dash the dog made good his throat 
hold, and throttled the wolf, though the latter con- 
trived to get his foe's foreleg into his jaws and broke 
it clear through. When I saw the dog he had com- 
pletely recovered, although pretty well scarred. 

On another neighboring ranch there is a most ill- 
favored hybrid, whose mother was a Newfoundland 
and whose father was a large wolf. It is stoutly 
built, with erect ears, pointed muzzle, rather short 
head, short bushy tail, and of a brindled color; 
funnily enough it looks more like a hyena than like 
either of its parents. It is familiar with people and 
a good cattle dog, but rather treacherous; it both 
barks and howls. The parent wolf carried on a 
long courtship with the Newfoundland. He came 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 31 

round the ranch, regularly and boldly, every night, 
and she would at once go out to him. In the day- 
light he would lie hid in the bushes at some little dis- 
tance. Once or twice his hiding-place was discov- 
ered and then the men would amuse themselves by 
setting the Newfoundland on him. She would make 
at him with great apparent ferocity; but when they 
were a good way from the men he would turn 
round and wait for her and they would go romping 
off together, not to be seen again for several hours. 
The cougar is hardly ever seen round my ranch; 
but toward the mountains it is very destructive both 
to horses and horned cattle. The ranchmen know it 
by the name of mountain lion ; and it is the same 
beast that in the East is called panther or "painter." 
The cougar is the same size and build as the Old 
World leopard, and with very much the same hab- 
its. One will generally lie in wait for the heifers 
or young steers as they come down to water, and 
singling out an animal, reach it in a couple of bounds 
and fasten its fangs in the throat or neck. I have 
seen quite a large cow that had been killed by a 
cougar ; and on another occasion, while out hunting 
over light snow, I came across a place where two 
bucks, while fighting, had been stalked up to by a 
cougar which pulled down one and tore him in 
pieces. The cougar's gait is silent and stealthy to 
an extraordinary degree; the look of the animal 
when creeping up to his prey has been wonderfully 
caught by the sculptor, Kemeys, in his bronzes : "The 
Still Hunt" and "The Silent Footfall." 



32 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

I have never myself killed a cougar, though my 
brother shot one in Texas, while still-hunting some 
deer, which the cougar itself was after. It never 
attacks a man, and even when hard pressed and 
wounded turns to bay with extreme reluctance, and 
at the first chance again seeks safety in flight. This 
was certainly not the case in old times, but the nature 
of the animal has been so changed by constant con- 
tact with rifle-bearing hunters, that timidity toward 
them has become a hereditary trait deeply ingrained 
in its nature. When the continent was first settled, 
and for long afterward, the cougar was quite as dan- 
gerous an antagonist as the African or Indian leop- 
ard, and would even attack men unprovoked. An 
instance of this occurred in the annals of my moth- 
er's family. Early in the present century one of my 
ancestral relatives, a Georgian, moved down to the 
wild and almost unknown country bordering on 
Florida. His plantation was surrounded by jungles 
in which all kinds of wild beasts swarmed. One 
of his negroes had a sweetheart on another planta- 
tion, and, in visiting her, instead of going by the 
road he took a short cut through the swamps, heed- 
less of the wild beasts, and armed only with a long 
knife — for he was a man of colossal strength, and 
of fierce and determined temper. One night he 
started to return late, expecting to reach the planta- 
tion in time for his daily task on the morrow. But 
he never reached home, and it was thought he had 
run away. However, when search was made for 
him his body was found in the path through the 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 23 

swamp, all gashed and torn, and but a few steps 
from him the body of a cougar, stabbed and cut in 
many places. Certainly that must have been a grim 
fight, in the gloomy, lonely recesses of the swamp, 
with no one to watch the midnight death struggle 
between the powerful, naked man and the ferocious 
brute that was his almost unseen assailant. 

When hungry, a cougar will attack anything it 
can master. I have known of their killing wolves 
and large dogs. A friend of mine, a ranchman in 
Wyoming, had two grisly bear cubs in his posses- 
sion at one time, and they were kept in a pen out- 
side the ranch. One night two cougars came down, 
and after vain efforts to catch a dog which was on 
the place, leaped into the pen and carried off the two 
young bears ! 

Two or three powerful dogs, however, will give 
a cougar all he wants to do to defend himself. A 
relative of mine in one of the Southern States had a 
small pack of five blood-hounds, with which he used 
to hunt the canebrakes for bear, wildcats, etc. On 
one occasion they ran across a cougar, and after a 
sharp chase treed him. As the hunters drew near 
he leaped from the tree and made off, but was over- 
taken by the hounds and torn to pieces after a sharp 
struggle in which one or two of the pack were badly 
scratched. 

Cougars are occasionally killed by poisoning, and 
they may be trapped much more easily than a wolf. 
I have never known them to be systematically hunted 
in the West, though now and then one is accidentally 



34 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

run across and killed with the rifle while the hunter 
is after some other game. 

As already said, ranchmen do not have much idle 
time on their hands, for their duties are manifold, 
and they need to be ever on the watch against their 
foes, both animate and inanimate. Where a man 
has so much to do he can not spare a great deal of 
his time for any amusement ; but a good part of that 
which the ranchman can spare he is very apt to 
spend in hunting. His quarry will be one of the 
seven kinds of plains game — bear, buffalo, elk, big- 
horn, antelope, blacktail, or whitetail deer. Moose, 
caribou, and white goat never come down into the 
cattle country; and it is only on the Southern 
ranches near the Rio Grande and the Rio Colorado 
that the truculent peccary and the great spotted 
jaguar are found. 

Until recently all sporting on the plains was con- 
fined to army officers, or to men of leisure who made 
extensive trips for no other purpose; leaving out of 
consideration the professional hunters, who trapped 
and shot for their livelihood. But with the incoming 
of the cattlemen, there grew up a class of residents, 
men with a stake in the welfare of the country, and 
with a regular business carried on in it, many of 
whom were keenly devoted to sport, — a class whose 
members were in many respects closely akin to the 
old Southern planters. In this book I propose to 
give some description of the kind of sport that can 
be had by the average ranchman who is fond of the 
rifle. Of course no man with a regular business can 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 25 

have such opportunities as fall to the lot of some who 
pass their lives in hunting only ; and we can not pre- 
tend to equal the achievements of such men, for with 
us it is merely a pleasure, to be eagerly sought after 
when we have the chance, but not to be allowed to 
interfere with our business. No ranchmen have time 
to make such extended trips as are made by some 
devotees of sport who are so fortunate as to have 
no every-day work to which to attend. Still, ranch 
life undoubtedly offers more chance to a man to 
get sport than is now the case with any other occu- 
pation in America, and those who follow it are apt 
to be men of game spirit, fond of excitement and ad- 
venture, who perforce lead an open-air life, who 
must needs ride well, for they are often in the 
saddle from sunrise to sunset^ and who naturally 
take kindly to that noblest of weapons, the rifle. 
With such men hunting is one of the chief of pleas- 
ures; and they follow it eagerly when their work 
will allow them. And with some of them it is at times 
more than a pleasure. On many of the ranches — on 
my own, for instance — the supply of fresh meat 
depends mainly on the skill of the riflemen, and so, 
both for pleasure and profit, most ranchmen do a 
certain amount of hunting each season. The buffalo 
are now gone forever, and the elk are rapidly shar- 
ing their fate; but antelope and deer are still quite 
plentiful, and will remain so for some years; and 
these are the common game of the plainsman. Nor 
is it likely that the game will disappear much before 
ranch life itself is a thing of the past. It is a phase 



3^ Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

of American life as fascinating as it is evanescent, 
and one well deserving an historian. But in these 
pages I propose to dwell on only one of its many 
pleasant sides, and to give some idea of the game 
shooting which forms perhaps the chief of the cattle- 
man's pleasures, aside from those more strictly con- 
nected with his actual work. I have to tell of no un- 
usual adventures, but merely of just such hunting as 
lies within reach of most of the sport-loving ranch- 
men, whose cattle range along the waters of the 
Powder and the Bighorn, the Little Missouri and 
the Yellowstone. 

Of course I have never myself gone out hunting 
under the direction of a professional guide or pro- 
fessional hunter, unless it was to see one of the latter 
who was reputed a crack shot; all of my trips have 
been made either by myself or else with one of my 
cowboys as a companion. Most of the so-called 
hunters are not worth much. There are plenty of 
men hanging round the frontier settlements who 
claim to be hunters, and who bedizen themselves in 
all the traditional finery of the craft, in the hope of 
getting a job at guiding some "tender foot"; and 
there are plenty of skin-hunters, or meat-hunters, 
who, after the Indians have been driven away and 
when means of communication have been estab- 
lished, mercilessly slaughter the game in season and 
out, being too lazy to work at any regular trade, and 
keeping on hunting until the animals become too 
scarce and shy to be taken without more skill than 
they possess; but these are all temporary excres- 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 37 

cences, and the true old Rocky Mountain hunter and 
trapper, the plainsman, or mountain-man, who, with 
all his faults, was a man of iron nerve and will, is 
now almost a thing of the past. In the place of these 
heroes of a bygone age, the men who were clad in 
buckskin and who carried long rifles, stands, or rath- 
er rides, the bronzed and sinewy cowboy, as pictu- 
resque and self-reliant, as dashing and resolute as 
the saturnine Indian fighters whose place he has 
taken ; and, alas that it should be written ! he in his 
turn must at no distant time share the fate of the 
men he has displaced. The ground over which he 
so gallantly rides his small, wiry horse will soon 
know him no more, and in his stead there will be 
the plodding grangers and husbandmen. I suppose 
it is right and for the best that the great cattle coun- 
try, with its broad extent of fenceless land, over 
which the ranchman rides as free as the game that 
he follows or the horned herds that he guards, should 
be in the end broken up into small patches of fenced 
farm land and grazing land ; but I hope against hope 
that I myself shall not live to see this take place, 
for when it does one of the pleasantest and freest 
phases of Western American life will have come 
to an end. 

The old hunters were a class by themselves. They 
penetrated, alone or in small parties, to the furthest 
and wildest haunts of the animals they followed, 
leading a solitary, lonely life, often never seeing a 
white face for months and even years together. 
They were skilful shots, and were cool, daring, and 



38 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

resolute to the verge of recklessness. On anything 
like even terms they very greatly overmatched the 
Indians by whom they were surrounded, and with 
whom they waged constant and ferocious war. In 
the government expeditions against the plains tribes 
they were of absolutely invaluable assistance as 
scouts. They rarely had regular wives or white 
children, and there are none to take their places, now 
that the greater part of them have gone. For the 
men who carry on hunting as a business where 
it is perfectly safe have all the vices of their proto- 
types, but, not having to face the dangers that be- 
set the latter, so neither need nor possess the stern, 
rough virtues that were required in order to meet 
and overcome them. The ranks of the skin-hunters 
and meat-hunters contain some good men; but as 
a rule they are a most unlovely race of beings, not 
excelling even in the pursuit which they follow be- 
cause they are too shiftless to do anything else; 
and the sooner they vanish the better. 

A word as to weapons and hunting dress. When 
I first came to the plains I had a heavy Sharps rifle, 
45 — 120, shooting an ounce and a quarter of lead, 
and a 50-calibre double-barreled English express. 
Both of these, especially the latter, had a vicious re- 
coil; the former was very clumsy; and above all 
they were neither of them repeaters; for a repeater 
or magazine gun is as much superior to a single or 
double-barreled breech-loader as the latter is to a 
muzzle-loader. I threw them both aside: and have 
instead a 40 — 90 Sharps for very long range work; 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 39 

a 50 — 115 6-shot Ballard express which has the 
velocity, shock, and low trajectory of the English 
gun ; and, better than either, a 45 — 75 half-magazine 
Winchester. The Winchester, which is stocked and 
sighted to suit myself, is by all odds the best weapon 
I ever had, and I now use it almost exclusively, 
having killed every kind of game with it, from a 
grisly bear to a big-horn. It is as handy to carry, 
whether on foot or on horseback, and comes up to 
the shoulder as readily as a shot-gun ; it is absolutely 
sure, and there is no recoil to jar and disturb the aim, 
while it carries accurately quite as far as a man can 
aim with any degree of certainty; and the bullet, 
weighing three-quarters of an ounce, is plenty large 
enough for anything on this continent. For shoot- 
ing the very large game (buffalo, elephants, etc.) of 
India and South Africa, much heavier rifles are un- 
doubtedly necessary; but the Winchester is the best 
gun for any game to be found in the United States, 
for it is as deadly, accurate, and handy as any, 
stands very rough usage, and is unapproachable for 
the rapidity of its fire and the facility with which it 
is loaded. 

Of course every ranchman carries a revolver, a 
long 45 Colt or Smith & Wesson, by preference the 
former. When after game a hunting knife is stuck 
in the girdle. This should be stout and sharp, but 
not too long, with a round handle. I have two 
double-barreled shot-guns : a No. 10 choke-bore for 
ducks and geese, made by Thomas of Chicago ; and 
a No. 16 hammerless, built for me by Kennedy of 



40 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

St. Paul, for grouse and plover. On regular hunt- 
ing trips I always carry the Winchester rifle; but 
in riding round near home, where a man may see 
a deer and is sure to come across ducks and grouse, 
it is best to take the little ranch gun, a double-bar- 
reled No. 1 6, with a 40 — 70 rifle underneath the 
shot-gun barrels. 

As for clothing, when only off on a day's trip, the 
ordinary ranchman's dress is good enough : flannel 
shirt and overalls tucked into alligator boots, the 
latter being of service against the brambles, cacti, 
and rattlesnakes. Such a costume is good in warm 
weather. When making a long hunting trip, where 
there will be much rough work, especially in the 
dry cold of fall and winter, there is nothing better 
than a fringed buckskin tunic or hunting-shirt (held 
in at the waist by the cartridge belt), buckskin 
trousers, and a fur cap, with heavy moccasins for 
use in the woods, and light alligator-hide shoes if 
it is intended to cross rocks and open ground. Buck- 
skin is most durable, keeps out the wind and cold, 
and is the best possible color for the hunter — no 
small point in approaching game. For wet it is 
not as good as good flannel, and it is hot in warm 
weather. On very cold days, fur gloves and either 
a coon-skin overcoat or a short riding jacket of 
fisher's fur may be worn. In cold weather, if 
traveling light with only what can be packed behind 
the horse, I sleep in a big buffalo-robe, sewed up at 
the sides and one end into the form of a bag, and 
very warm. When, as is sometimes the case, the 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 41 

spirit in the thermometer sinks to — 60° — 65° Fah- 
renheit, it is necessary to have more wraps and bed- 
ding, and we use beaver-robes and bear-skins. An 
oilskin *'sHcker" or waterproof overcoat and a pair 
of chaps keep out the rain almost completely. 

Where most of the hunting is done on horseback 
the hunting-pony is a very important animal. Many 
people seem to think that any broken-down pony 
will do to hunt, but this seems to me a very great 
mistake. My own hunting-horse, Manitou, is the 
best and most valuable animal on the ranch. He 
is stoutly built and strong, able to carry a good- 
sized bttck behind his rider for miles at a lope with- 
out minding it in the least; he is very enduring and 
very hardy, not only picking up a living, but even 
growing fat when left to shift for himself under 
very hard conditions ; and he is perfectly surefooted, 
and as fast as any horse on the river. Though 
both willing and spirited, he is very gentle, with an 
easy mouth, and will stay grazing in one spot when 
left, and will permit himself to be caught without 
difficulty. Add to these virtues the fact that he will 
let any dead beast or thing be packed on him, and 
will allow a man to shoot off his back or right by 
him without moving^ and it is evident that he is 
as nearly perfect as can be the case with hunting- 
horseflesh. There is a little sorrel mare on the 
ranch, a perfect little pet, that is almost as good, 
but too small. We have some other horses we fre- 
quently use, but all have faults. Some of the quiet 
ones are slow, lazy, or tire easily; others are gun 



42 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

shy; while others plunge and buck if we try to pack 
any game on their backs. Others can not be left 
standing untied, as they run away; and I can 
imagine few forms of exercise so soul-harrowing 
as that of spending an hour or two in running, 
in chaps, top boots, and spurs over a broken prairie, 
with the thermometer at 90°, after an escaped 
horse. Most of the hunting-horses used by my 
friends have one or more of these tricks, and it is 
rare to find one, like Manitou, who has none of 
them. Manitou is a treasure and I value him ac- 
cordingly. Besides, he is a sociable old fellow, and 
a great companion when off alone, coming up to have 
his head rubbed or to get a crust of bread, of which 
he is very fond. 

To be remarkably successful in killing game a 
man must be a good shot; but a good target shot 
may be a very poor hunter, and a fairly successful 
hunter may be only a moderate shot. Shooting well 
with the rifle is the highest kind of skill, for the rifle 
is the queen of weapons; and it is a diflicult art to 
learn. But many other qualities go to make up the 
first-class hunter. He must be persevering, watch- 
ful, hardy, and with good judgment ; and a little dash 
and energy at the proper time often help him im- 
mensely. I myself am not, and never will be, more 
than an ordinary shot ; for my eyes are bad and my 
hand not oversteady; yet I have killed every kind 
of game to be found on the plains, partly because 
I have hunted very perseveringly, and partly because 
by practice I have learned to shoot about as well 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 43 

at a wild animal as at a target. I have killed rather 
more game than most of the ranchmen who are my 
neighbors, though at least half of them are better 
shots than I am. 

Time and again I have seen a man who had, as 
he deemed, practiced sufficiently at a target, come 
out "to kill a deer" hot with enthusiasm; and nine 
out of ten times he has gone back unsuccessful, even 
when deer were quite plentiful. Usually he has been 
told by the friend who advised him to take the trip, 
or by the guide who inveigled him into it, that *'the 
deer were so plenty you saw them all round you," 
and, this not proving quite true, he lacks persever- 
ance to keep on; or else he fails to see the deer at 
the right time ; or else if he does see it he misses it, 
making the discovery that to shoot at a gray object, 
not over-distinctly seen, at a distance merely guessed 
at, and with a background of other gray objects, is 
very different from firing into a target, brightly 
painted and a fixed number of yards off. A man 
must be able to hit a bull's-eye eight inches across 
every time to do good w!ork with deer or other 
game ; for the spot around the shoulders that is fatal 
is not much bigger than this ; and a shot a little back 
of that merely makes a wound which may in the end 
prove mortal, but which will in all probability allow 
the animal to escape for the time being. It takes a 
good shot to hit a bull's-eye off-hand several times 
in succession at a hundred yards, and if the bull's- 
eye was painted the same color as the rest of the 
landscape, and was at an uncertain distance, and. 



44 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

moreover, was alive, and likely to take to its heels 
at any moment, the difficulty of making a good shot 
would be greatly enhanced. The man who can kill 
his"buck right along at a hundred yards has a right 
to claim that he is a good shot. If he can shoot off- 
hand standing up, that is much the best way, but 
I myself always drop on one knee, if I have time, 
unless the animal is very close. It is curious to hear 
the nonsense that is talked and to see the nonsense 
that is written about the distances at which game is 
killed. Rifles now carry with deadly effect the dis- 
tance of a mile, and most middle-range hunting-rifles 
would at least kill at half a mile; and in war firing 
is often begun at these ranges. But in war there 
is very little accurate aiming, and the fact that there 
is a variation of thirty or forty feet in the flight of 
the ball makes no difference ; and, finally, a thousand 
bullets are fired for every man killed — and usually 
many more than a thousand. How would that serve 
for a record on game ? The truth is that three hun- 
dred yards is a very long shot, and that even two 
hundred yards is a long shot. On looking over my 
game-book I find that the average distance at which 
I have killed game on the plains is less than a hun- 
dred and fifty yards. A few years ago, when the 
buffalo would stand still in great herds, half a mile 
from the hunter, the latter, using a long-range 
Sharps rifle, would often, by firing a number of 
shots into the herd at that distance, knock over two 
or three buffalo ; but I have hardly ever known sin- 
gle animals to be killed six hundred yards off, even 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 45 

in antelope hunting, the kind in which most long- 
range shooting is done; and at half that distance 
a very good shot, with all the surroundings in his 
favor, is more apt to miss than to hit. Of course 
old hunters — the most inveterate liars on the face of 
the earth — are all the time telling of their wonder- 
ful shots at even longer distances, and they do occa- 
sionally, when shooting very often, make them, but 
their performances, when actually tested, dwindle 
amazingly. Others, amateurs, will brag of their 
rifles. I lately read in a magazine about killing 
antelopes at eight hundred yards with a Winchester 
express, a weapon which can not be depended upon 
at over twio hundred, and is wholly inaccurate at 
over three hundred, yards. 

The truth is that, in almost all cases, the hunter 
merely guesses at the distance, and, often perfectly 
honestly, just about doubles it in his own mind. 
Once a man told me of an extraordinary shot by 
which he killed a deer at four hundred yards. A 
couple of days afterward we happened to pass the 
place, and I had the curiosity to step off the dis- 
tance, finding it a trifle over a hundred and ninety. 
I always make it a rule to pace off the distance after 
a successful shot, whenever practicable — that is, 
when the animal has not run too far before drop- 
ping, — and I was at first both amused and somewhat 
chagrined to see how rapidly what I had supposed 
to be remarkably long shots shrank under actual 
pacing. It is a good rule always to try to get as 
near the game as possible, and in most cases it is 



46 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

best to risk startling it in the effort to get closer 
rather than to risk missing it by a shot at long 
range. At the same time, I am a great believer in 
powder-burning, and if I can not get near, will gen- 
erally try a shot anyhow, if there is a chance of the 
rifle's carrying to it. In this way a man will now 
and then, in the midst of many misses, make a very 
good long shot, but he should not try to deceive 
himself into the belief that these occasional long 
shots are to be taken as samples of his ordinary 
skill. Yet it is curious to see how a really truthful 
man will forget his misses, and his hits at close 
quarters, and, by dint of constant repetition, will 
finally persuade himself that he is in the habit of 
killing his game at three or four hundred yards. 
Of course in different kinds of ground the aver- 
age range for shooting varies. In the Bad Lands 
most shots will be obtained much closer than on 
the prairie, and in the timber they will be nearer 
still. 

Old hunters who are hardy, persevering, and well 
acquainted with the nature of the animals they pur- 
sue, will often kill a great deal of game without 
being particularly good marksmen ; besides, they are 
careful to get up close, and are not flurried at all, 
shooting as well at a deer as they do at a target. 
They are, as a rule, fair shots — that is, they shoot 
a great deal better than Indians or soldiers, or than 
the general run of Eastern amateur sportsmen; but 
I have never been out with one who has not missed 
a great deal, and the ''Leather-stocking" class of 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 47 

shooting stones are generally untrue, at least to the 
extent of suppressing part of the truth — that is, the 
number of misses. Beyond question our Western 
hunters are, as a body, to the full as good marksmen 
as, and probably much better than, any other body 
of men in the world, not even excepting the Dutch 
Boers or Tyrolese Jagers, and a certain number of 
them who shoot a great deal at game, and are able 
to squander cartridges very freely, undoubtedly be- 
come crack shots, and perform really wonderful 
feats. 

As an instance there is old "Vic," a former 
scout and Indian fighter, and concededly the best 
hunter on the Little Missouri ; probably there are 
not a dozen men in the West who are better shots or 
hunters than he is, and I have seen him do most 
skilful work. He can run the muzzle of his rifle 
through a board so as to hide the sights, and yet do 
quite good shooting at some little distance; he will 
cut the head off a chicken at eighty or ninety yards, 
shoot a deer running through brush at that distance, 
kill grouse on the wing early in the season, and 
knock over antelopes when they are so far off that 
I should not dream of shooting. He firmly believes, 
and so do most men that speak of him, that he never 
misses. Yet I have known him make miss after 
miss at game, and some that were not such especially 
difficult shots either. One secret of his success is 
his constant practice. He is firing all the time, at 
marks, small birds, etc., and will average from fifty 
to a hundred cartridges a day; he certainly uses 



48 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

nearly twenty thousand a year, while a man who 
only shoots for sport, and that occasionally, will, in 
practicing at marks and everything else, hardly get 
through with five hundred. Besides, he was cradled 
in the midst of wild life, and has handled a rifle 
and used it against both brute and human foes 
almost since his infancy; his nerves and sinews 
are like iron, and his eye is naturally both quick 
and true. 

Vic is an exception. With practice an amateur 
will become nearly as good a shot as the average 
hunter; and, as I said before, I do not myself be- 
lieve in taking out a professional hunter as a shoot- 
ing companion. If I do not go alone I generally 
go with one of my foremen, Merrifield, who himself 
came from the East but five years ago. He is a 
good-looking fellow, daring and self-reliant, a good 
rider and first-class shot, and a very keen sportsman. 
Of late years he has been my iidus Achates of the 
hunting field. I can kill more game with him than 
I can alone; and in hunting on the plains there are 
many occasions on which it is almost a necessity to 
have a companion along. 

It frequently happens that a solitary hunter finds 
himself in an awkward predicament, from which he 
could be extricated easily enough if there were an- 
other man with him. His horse may fall into a 
washout, or may get stuck in a mud-hole or quick- 
sand in such a manner that a man working by him- 
self will have great difficulty in getting it out ; and 
two heads often prove better than one in an emer- 



Ranching in the Bad Lands 49 

gency, especially if a man gets hurt in any way. 
The first thing that a Western plainsman has to 
learn is the capacity for self-help, but at the same 
time he must not forget that occasions may arise 
when the help of others will be most grateful. 



Vol. IV. 



CHAPTER II 

WATERFOWL 

ONE cool afternoon in the early fall, while sit- 
ting on the veranda of the ranch house, we 
heard a long way off the ha-ha-honk, ha-honk, of a 
gang of wild geese; and shortly afterward they 
came in sight, in a V-shaped line, flying low and 
heavily toward the south, along the course of the 
stream. They went by within a hundred yards of 
the house, and we watched them for some minutes 
as they flew up the valley, for they were so low in 
the air that it seemed certain that they would soon 
alight; and light they did when they were less than 
a mile past us. As the ground was flat and without 
much cover where they had settled, I took the rifle 
instead of a shotgun and hurried after them on foot. 
Wild geese are very watchful and wary, and as I 
came toward the place where I thought they were 
I crept along with as much caution as if the game 
had been a deer. At last, peering through a thick 
clump of bulberry bushes, I saw them. They were 
clustered on a high sandbar in the middle of the 
river, which here ran in a very wide bed between 
low banks. The only wa}^ to get at them was to 
crawl along the river-bed, which was partly dry, 
using the patches of rushes and the sand hillocks 

(50) 



Waterfowl 51 

and driftwood to shield myself from their view. 
As it was already late and the sun was just sinking, 
I hastily retreated a few paces, dropped over the 
bank, and began to creep along on my hands and 
knees through the sand and gravel. Such work is 
always tiresome, and it is especially so wdien done 
against time. I kept in line with a great log washed 
up on the shore, which was some seventy-five yards 
from the geese. On reaching it and looking over 
I was annoyed to find that in the fading light I could 
not distinguish the birds clearly enough to shoot, as 
the dark river bank was behind them. I crawled 
quickly back a few yards, and went off a good bit 
to the left into a hollow. Peeping over the edge I 
could now see the geese, gathered into a clump with 
their necks held straight out, sharply outlined against 
the horizon; the sand flats stretching out on either 
side, while the sky above was barred with gray and 
faint crimson. I fired into the thickest of the bunch, 
and as the rest flew off, with discordant clamor, ran 
forward and picked up my victim, a fat young 
wild goose (or Canada goose), the body badly torn 
by the bullet. 

On two other occasions I have killed geese with 
the rifle. Once while out riding along the river 
bottoms, just at dawn, my attention w^s drawn to 
a splashing and low cackling in the stream, where 
the water deepened in a wide bend, which swept 
round a low bluff. Leaving my horse where he 
was, I walked off tow^ard the edge of the stream, 
and lying on the brink of the bank looked over into 



52 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

the water of the bend. Only a faint streak of Hght 
was visible in the east, so that objects on the water 
could hardly be made out ; and the little wreaths of 
mist that rose from the river made the difficulty 
even greater. The birds were some distance above 
me, where the water made a long straight stretch 
through a sandy level. I could not see them, but 
could plainly hear their low murmuring and splash- 
ing, and once one of them, as I judged by the sound, 
stood up on end and flapped its wings vigorously. 
Pretty soon a light puff of wind blew the thin mist 
aside, and I caught a glimpse of them ; as I had sup- 
posed, they were wild geese, five of them, swimming 
slowly, or rather resting on the water, and being 
drifted down with the current. The fog closed over 
them again, but it was growing light very rapidly, 
and in a short time I knew they would be in the still 
w^ater of the bend just below me, so I rose on my 
elbows and held my rifle ready at the poise. In a 
few minutes, before the sun was above the horizon, 
but when there was plenty of light by which to shoot, 
another eddy in the wind blew away the vapor and 
showed the five geese in a cluster, some thirty yards 
6^. I fired at once, and one of the geese, kicking 
and flapping frantically, fell over, its neck half cut 
from the body, while the others, with laborious ef- 
fort, got under way. Before they could get their 
heavy bodies fairly off the water and out of range, 
T had taken three more shots, but missed. Waiting 
till the dead goose drifted in to shore, I picked it up 
and tied it on the saddle of my horse to carry home 



Waterfowl ^;^ 

to the ranch. Being young and fat it was excellent 
eating. 

The third goose I killed with the rifle was of a 
different kind. I had been out after antelopes, start- 
ing before there was any light in the heavens, and 
pushing straight out toward the rolling prairie. Af- 
ter two or three hours, when the sun was well up, 
I neared where a creek ran in a broad, shallow valley. 
I had seen no game, and before coming up to the 
crest of the divide beyond which lay the creek bot- 
tom, I dismounted and crawled up to it, so as to see 
if any animal had come down to drink. Field- 
glasses are almost always carried while hunting on 
the plains, as the distances at which one can see game 
are so enormous. On looking over the crest with 
the glasses the valley of the creek for about a mile 
was stretched before me. At my feet the low hills 
came closer together than in other places, and 
shelved abruptly down to the bed of the valley, where 
there was a small grove of box-alders and cotton- 
woods. The beavers had, in times gone by, built a 
large dam at this place across the creek, which must 
have produced a great back-flow and made a regular 
little lake in the times of freshets. But the dam 
was now broken, and the beavers, or most of them, 
gone, and in the place of the lake was a long green 
meadow. Glancing toward this, my eye was at once 
caught by a row of white objects stretched straight 
across it, and another look showed me that they 
were snow-geese. They were feeding, and were 
moving abreast of one another slowly down the 



54 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

length of the meadow toward the end nearest me, 
where the patch of small trees and brushwood lay. 
A goose is not as big game as an antelope; still I 
had never shot a snow-goose, and we needed fresh 
meat, so I slipped back over the crest and ran down 
to the bed of the creek, round a turn of the hill, 
where the geese were out of sight. The creek was 
not an entirely dry one, but there was no depth of 
water in it except in certain deep holes; elsewhere 
it was a muddy ditch with steep sides, difficult to 
cross on horseback because of the quicksands. I 
walked up to the trees without any special care, as 
they screened me from view, and looked cautiously 
out from behind them. The geese were acting just 
as our tame geese act in feeding on a common, mov- 
ing along with their necks stretched out before them, 
nibbling and jerking at the grass as they tore it up 
by mouthfuls. They were very watchful, and one 
or the other of them had its head straight in the air 
looking sharply round all the time. Geese will not 
come near any cover in which foes may be lurking 
if they can help it, and so I feared that they would 
turn before coming near enough to the brush to give 
me a good shot. I therefore dropped into the bed 
of the creek, which wound tortuously along the side 
of the meadow, and crept on all fours along one of 
its banks until I came to where it made a loop out 
toward the middle of the bottom. Here there was 
a tuft of tall grass, which served as a good cover, 
and I stood upright, dropping my hat, and looking 
through between the blades. The geese, still in a 



Waterfowl 55 

row, with several yards' interval between each one 
and his neighbor, wevQ only sixty or seventy yards 
off, still feeding toward me. They came along quite 
slowly, and the ones nearest, with habitual suspicion, 
edged away from the scattered tufts of grass and 
weeds which marked the brink of the creek. I tried 
to get two in line, but could not. There was one 
gander much larger than any other bird in the lot, 
though not the closest to me ; as he went by just op- 
posite my hiding-place, he stopped still, broadside 
to me, and I aimed just at the root of the neck — for 
he was near enough for any one firing a rifle from 
a rest to hit him about where he pleased. Away 
flew the others, and in a few minutes I was riding 
along with the white gander dangling behind my 
saddle. 

The beaver meadows spoken of above are not 
common, but, until within the last two or three 
years, beavers themselves were very plentiful, and 
there are still a good many left. Although only 
settled for so short a period, the land has been known 
to hunters for half a century, and throughout that 
time it has at intervals been trapped over by whites 
or half-breeds. If fur was high and the Indians 
peaceful quite a number of trappers would come in, 
for the Little Missouri Bad Lands were always 
fam.ous both for fur and game; then if fur went 
down, or an Indian war broke out, or if the beaver 
got pretty well thinned out, the place would be for- 
saken and the animals would go unmolested for 
perhaps a dozen years, when the process would be 



^6 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

repeated. But the incoming of the settlers and the 
driving out of the Indians have left the ground clear 
for the trappers to work over unintermittently, and 
the extinction of the beaver throughout the plains 
country is a question of but a short time. Except- 
ing an occasional otter or mink, or a few musk-rats, 
it is the only fur-bearing animal followed by the 
Western plains trapper; and its large size and the 
marked peculiarities of its habits, together with the 
accessibility of its haunts on the plains, as com- 
pared with its haunts in the deep woods and moun- 
tains, render its pursuit and capture comparatively 
easy. We have trapped (or occasionally shot) on 
the ranch during the past three years several score 
beaver ; the fur is paler and less valuable than in the 
forest animal. Those that live in the river do not 
build dams all across it, but merely extending up 
some distance against the current, so as to make a 
deep pool or eddy, beside which are the burrows 
and houses. It would seem to be a simple feat to 
break into a beaver house, but in reality it needs 
no little toil with both spade and axe, for the house 
has very thick roof and walls, made of clay and 
tough branches, twisted together into a perfect mat, 
which, when frozen, can withstand anything but 
the sharpest and best of tools. At evening beaver 
often come out to swim, and by waiting on the 
plank perfectly quiet for an hour or so a close shot 
can frequently be obtained. 

Beaver are often found in the creeks, not only 
in those which always contain running water, but 



Waterfowl 57 

also in the dry ones. Here they build dams clean 
across, making ponds which always contain water, 
even if the rest of the bed is almost dry ; and I have 
often been surprised to find fresh traces of beaver in 
a pond but a few feet across^ a mile away from any 
other body of water. On one occasion I was deer- 
hunting in a rough, broken country, which was little 
more than a tangle of ravines and clefts, with very 
steep sides rising into sharp hills. The sides of the 
ravines were quite densely overgrown with under- 
brush and young trees, and through one or two of 
them ran, or rather trickled, small streams, but an inch 
or two in depth, and often less. Directly across one 
of these ravines, at its narrowest and steepest part, the 
beaver had built an immense, massive dam, complete- 
ly stopping the course of a little brooklet. The dam 
was certainly eight feet high, and strong enough and 
broad enough to cross on horseback; and it had 
turned back the stream until a large pond, almost a 
little lake, had been formed by it. This was miles 
from any other body of water, but, judging from 
the traces of their work, it had once held a large 
colony of beavers; when I saw it they had all been 
trapped out, and the pond had been- deserted for a 
year and over. Though clumsy on dry ground, and 
fearing much to be caught upon it, yet beaver can 
make, if necessary, quite long overland journeys, 
and that at a speed with which it will give a man 
trouble to keep up. 

As there are few fish in the plains streams, otters 
are naturally not at all common^ though occasionally 



58 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

we get one. Musk-rats are quite plentiful in all the 
pools of water. Sometimes a little pool out on the 
prairie will show along its edges numerous traces 
of animal life; for, though of small extent, and a 
long distance from other water, it may be the home 
of beavers and musk-rats, the breeding-place of 
different kinds of ducks, and the drinking-place for 
the denizens of the dry country roundabout, such as 
wolves, antelopes, and badgers. 

Although the plains country is in most places 
very dry, yet there are here and there patches of 
prairie land where the reverse is true. One such is 
some thirty miles distant from my ranch. The 
ground is gently rolling, in some places almost level, 
and is crossed by two or three sluggish, winding 
creeks with many branches, always holding water, 
and swelling out into small pools and lakelets where- 
ever there is a hollow. The prairie round about is 
wet, at times almost marshy, especially at the borders 
of the great reedy slews. These pools and slews are 
favorite breeding-places for waterfowl, especially 
for mallard, and a good bag can be made at them in 
the fall, both among the young flappers (as tender 
and delicious birds for the table as any I know), 
and among the flights of wild duck that make the 
region a stopping-place on their southern migra- 
tion. In these small pools, with little cover round 
the edges, the poor flappers are at a great disad- 
vantage; we never shoot them unless we really need 
them for the table. But quite often, in August or 
September, if near the place, I have gone down to 



Waterfowl 59 

visit one or two of the pools, and have brought home 
half a dozen flappers, killed with the rifle if I had 
been out after large game, or with the revolver if 
I had merely been among the cattle, — each duck, 
in the latter case, representing the expenditure of a 
vast number of cartridges. 

Later in the fall, when the young ducks are grown 
and the flocks are coming in from the north, fair 
shooting may be had by lying in the rushes on the 
edge of some pond, and waiting for the evening 
flight of the birds; or else by taking a station on 
some spot of low ground across which the ducks fly 
in passing from one sheet of water to another. Fre- 
quently quite a bag of mallard, widgeon, and pintail 
can be made in this manner, although now^here in 
the Bad Lands is there any such duck-shooting as 
is found further east. Ducks are not very easy to 
kill, or even to hit, when they fly past. My duck 
gun, the No. 10 choke-bore, is a very strong and 
close shooting piece, and such a one is needed when 
the strong-flying birds are at any distance; but the 
very fact of its shooting so close makes it neces- 
sary that the aim should be very true ; and as a con- 
sequence my shooting at ducks has varied from bad 
to indifferent, and my bags have been always small. 

Once I made an unusually successful right and 
left, however. In late summer and early fall large 
flocks of both green-winged and blue-winged teal 
are often seen both on the ponds and on the river, 
flying up and down the latter. On one occasion 
while out with the wagon we halted for the midday 



6o Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

meal on the bank of the river. Travehng across 
the plains in company with a wagon, especially if 
making a long trip, as we were then doing, is both 
tiresome and monotonous. The scenery through 
the places where the wagon must go is everywhere 
much the same, and the pace is very slow. At lunch- 
time I was glad to get off the horse^ which had been 
plodding along at a walk for hours, and stretch 
my muscles; and, noticing a bunch of teal fly past 
and round a bend in the river, I seized the chance 
for a little diversion, and taking my double-barrel, 
followed them on foot. The banks were five or six 
feet high edged with a thick growth of cottonwood 
saplings; so the chance to creep up was very good. 
On getting round the bend I poked my head through 
the bushes, and saw that the little bunch I was after 
had joined a great flock of teal, which was on a sand 
bar in the middle of the stream. They were all 
huddled together, some standing on the bar, and 
others in the water right by it, and I aimed for the 
thickest part of the flock. At the report they sprang 
into the air, and I leaped to my feet to give them 
the second barrel, when from under the bank right 
beneath me two shoveler or spoon-bill ducks rose, 
with great quacking and, as they were right in line, 
I took them instead, knocking both over. When I 
had fished out the two shovelers, I waded over to 
the sand bar and picked up eleven teal, making 
thirteen ducks with two barrels. 

On one occasion my brother and myself made a 
short wagon trip in the levels fertile, farming coun- 



Waterfowl 6i 

try, whose western edge lies many miles to the east 
of the Bad Lands around my ranch. There the 
land was already partially settled by farmers, and 
we had one or two days' quite fair duck-shooting. 
It was a rolling country of mixed prairie land and 
rounded hills, with small groves of trees and numer- 
ous little lakes in the hollow^s. The surface of the 
natural prairie was broken in places by great wheat 
fields, and when we were there the grain was gath- 
ered in sheaves and stacks among the stubble. At 
night-time we either put up at the house of some 
settler, or, if there were none round, camped out. 
One night we had gone into camp among the 
dense timber fringing a small river, which wound 
through the prairie in a deep narrow bed with steep 
banks. Until people have actually -camped out 
themselves it is difficult for them to realize how 
much work there is in making or breaking camp. 
But it is very quickly done if every man has his 
duties assigned to him and starts about doing them 
at once. In choosing camp there are three essentials 
to be looked to — wood, water, and grass. The last 
is found everywhere in the Eastern prairie land, 
where we were on our duck-shooting trip, but in 
many places on the great dry plains further west, 
it is either very scanty or altogether lacking; and 
I have at times been forced to travel half a score 
miles further than I wished to get feed for the 
horses. Water, again, is a commodity not by any 
means to be found everywhere on the plains. If 
the country is known and the journeys timed aright. 



62 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

water can easily be had, at least at the night camps, 
for on a pinch a wagon can be pushed along thirty 
miles or so at a stretch, giving the tough ponies 
merely a couple of hours' rest and feed at midday; 
but in going through an unknown country it has 
b^en my misfortune on more than one occasion to 
make a dry camp^ — that is, one without any water 
either for men or horses, and such camps are most 
uncomfortable. The thirst seems to be most annoy- 
ing just after sundown; after one has gotten to 
sleep and the air has become cool, he is not troubled 
much by it again until within two or three hours of 
noon next day, when the chances are that he will 
have reached water, for of course by that time he 
will have made a desperate push to get to it. When 
found, it is more than likely to be bad, being either 
from a bitter alkaline pool, or from a hole in a creek, 
so muddy that it can only be called liquid by cour- 
tesy. On the great plains wood is even scarcer, 
and at least half the time the only material from 
which to make a fire will be buffalo chips and sage 
brush ; the long roots of the latter if dug up make a 
very hot blaze. Of course when wood is so scarce 
the lire is a small one, used merely to cook by, and 
is not kept up after the cooking is over. 

When a place with grass, wood, and water is 
found, the wagon is driven up to the windward 
side of where the beds are to be laid, and the horses 
are unhitched, watered, and turned out to graze 
freely until bedtime, when a certain number of 
them are picketed or hobbled. If danger from 



Waterfowl 6^ 

white or red horse-thieves is feared, a guard is 
kept over them all night. The ground is cleared 
of stones and cacti where the beds are to be placed, 
and the blankets and robes spread. Generally we 
have no tent, and the wagon-cover is spread over 
all to keep out rain. Meanwhile some one gathers 
the wood and starts a fire. The coffee-pot is set 
among the coals, and the frying-pan with bacon 
and whatever game has been shot is placed on top. 
Like Eastern backwoodsmen, all plainsmen fry 
about everything they can get hold of to cook; for 
my own use I ahvays have a broiler carried along 
in the wagon. One evening in every three or four 
is employed in baking bread in the Dutch oven; 
if there is no time for this, biscuits are made in 
the frying-pan. The food carried along is very 
simple, consisting of bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, 
baking-powder, and salt; for all else we depend 
on our guns. On a long trip every old hand carries 
a water-proof canvas bag, containing his few spare 
clothes and necessaries; on a short trip a little oil- 
skin one, for the tooth-brush, soap, towel, etc., 
will do. 

On the evening in question our camping-ground 
was an excellent one ; we had no trouble about any- 
thing, except that we had to bring water to the 
horses in pails, for the banks were too steep and 
rotten to get them down to the river. The beds 
were made under a great elm, and in a short time 
the fire was roaring in front of them, while the 
tender grouse were being roasted on pointed sticks. 



64 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

One of the pleasantest times of camping out is 
the period immediately after supper, when the hunt- 
ers he in the blaze of the firelight, talking over 
what they have done during the day and making 
their plans for the morrow. And how soundly a 
man who has worked hard sleeps in the open, none 
but he who has tried it knows. 

Before we had risen in the morning, when the 
blackness of the night had barely changed to gray, 
we were roused by the whistle of wings, as a flock 
of ducks flew by along the course of the stream, 
and lit in the water just above the camp. Some 
kinds of ducks in lighting strike the water with 
their tails first, and skitter along the surface for 
a few feet before settling down. Lying in our 
blankets we could plainly hear all the motions: 
first of all, the whistle — whistle of their wings; 
then a long-drawn splash-h-h — plump; and then 
a low, conversational quacking. It was too dark 
to shoot, but we got up and ready, and strolled 
down along the brink of the river opposite where 
we could hear them; and as soon as we could see 
we gave them four barrels and picked up half a 
dozen scaup-ducks. Breakfast was not yet ready, 
and we took a turn out on the prairie before com- 
ing back to the wagon. In a small pool, down in 
a hollow, were a couple of little dipper ducks or 
buffle-heads; they rose slowly against the wind, 
and offered such fair marks that it was out of the 
question to miss them. 

The evening before we had lain among the reeds 



Waterfowl 6^ 

near a marshy lake and had killed quite a number 
of ducks, mostly widgeon and teal; and this morn- 
ing we intended to try shooting among the corn- 
fields. By sunrise we were a good distance off, 
on a high ridge, across which we had noticed that 
the ducks flew in crossing from one set of lakes 
to another. The flight had already begun, and our 
arrival scared off the birds for the time being; but 
in a little while, after we had hidden among the 
sheaves, stacking the straw up around us, the ducks 
began to come back, either flying over in their pas- 
sage from the water, or else intending to light and 
feed. They were for the most part mallards, which 
are the commonest of the Western ducks, and the 
only species customarily killed in this kind of shoot- 
ing. They are especially fond of the corn, of which 
there was a small patch in the grain field. To this 
flocks came again and again, and fast though they 
flew we got many before they left the place, scared 
by the shooting. Those that were merely passing 
from one point to another flew low, and among 
them we shot a couple of gad wall, and also knocked 
over a red-head from a little bunch that went by, 
their squat, chunky forms giving them a very dif- 
ferent look from the longer, lighter-built mallard. 
The mallards that came to feed flew high in the 
air, wheeling round in gradually lowering circles 
when they had reached the spot where they in- 
tended to light. In shooting in the grain fields 
there is usually plenty of time to aim, a snap shot 
being from the nature of the sport exceptional. 



66 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

Care must be taken to lie quiet until the ducks are 
near enough; shots are most often lost through 
shooting too soon. Heavy guns with heavy loads 
are necessary, for the ducks are generally killed 
at long range; and from this circumstance as 
well as from the rapidity of their flight, it is im- 
perative to hold well ahead of the bird fired at. 
It has one advantage over shooting in a marsh, 
and that is that a wounded bird which drops is 
of course hardly ever lost. Corn-fed mallards are 
most delicious eating; they rank on a par with teal 
and red-head, and second only to the canvas-back 
— a bird, by the way, of which I have killed but one 
or two individuals in the West. 

In going out of this field we got a shot at a 
gang of wild geese. We saw them a long way off, 
coming straight toward us in a head and tail line. 
Down we dropped, flat on our faces, remaining per- 
fectly still without even looking up (for wild geese 
are quick to catch the slightest motion) until the 
sound of the heavy wing strokes and the honking 
seemed directly overhead. Then we rose on our 
knees and fired all four barrels, into which we had 
slipped buckshot cartridges. They were away up 
in the air, much beyond an ordinary gunshot; and 
we looked regretfully after them as they flew off. 
Pretty soon one lagged a little behind; his wings 
beat slower; suddenly his long neck dropped, and 
he came down like a stone, one of the buckshot hav- 
ing gone clean through his breast. 

We had a long distance to make that day, and 



Waterfowl 67 

after leaving the grain fields traveled pretty steadily, 
only getting out of the wagon once or twice after 
prairie chickens. At lunch time we halted near a 
group of small ponds and reedy sloughs. In these 
were quite a number of teal and wood-duck, which 
were lying singly, in pairs, or small bunches, on the 
edges of the reeds, or where there were thick clusters 
of lily pads ; and we had half an hour's good sport 
in "jumping" these little ducks, moving cautiously 
along the margin of the reeds, keeping as much as 
possible concealed from view, and shooting four teal 
and a wood-duck, as, frightened at our near ap- 
proach, they sprang into the air and made off. Late 
in the evening, while we were passing over a narrow 
neck of land that divided two small lakes, with 
reedy shores, from each other, a large flock of the 
usually shy pintail duck passed over us at close 
range, and we killed two from the wagon, making 
in all a bag of twenty-one and a half couple of 
waterfowl during the day, two-thirds falling to 
my brother's gun. Of course, this is a very small 
bag indeed compared to those made in the Chesa- 
peake, or in Wisconsin and the Mississippi Valley; 
but the day was so perfect, and there were so many 
varieties of shooting, that I question if any bag, no 
matter how large, ever gave much more pleasure to 
the successful sportsman than did our forty-three 
ducks to us. 

Though ducks fly so fast, and need such good 
shooting to kill them, yet their rate of speed, as com- 
pared to that of other birds, is not so great as is 



6S Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

comfnonly supposed. Hawks, for instance, are fast- 
er. Once, on the prairie, I saw a mallard singled 
out of a flock, fairly overtaken, and struck down, 
by a large, light-colored hawk, which I supposed 
to be a lanner, or at any rate one of the long- 
winged falcons ; and I saw a duck hawk, on the coast 
of Long Island, perform a similar feat with the 
swift-flying long-tailed duck — the old squaw, or 
sou'-sou'-southerly, of the baymen. A more curi- 
ous instance was related to me by a friend. He was 
out along a river, shooting ducks as they flew by 
him, and had noticed a bald eagle perched on the 
top of a dead tree some distance from him. While 
looking at it a little bunch of teal flew swiftly by, 
and to his astonishment the eagle made after them. 
The little ducks went along like bullets, their wings 
working so fast that they whistled; flop, flop came 
the great eagle after them, with labored-looking 
flight; and yet he actually gained so rapidly on his 
seemingly fleeter quarry that he was almost up to 
them when opposite my friend. Then the five teal 
went down headlong into the water, diving like so 
many shot. The eagle kept hovering over the spot, 
thrusting with its claws at each little duck as it 
came up; but he was unsuccessful, all of the teal 
eventually getting into the reeds, where they were 
safe. In the East, by the way, I have seen the 
same trick of hovering over the water where a flock 
of ducks had disappeared, performed by a Cooper^s 
hawk. He had swooped at some nearly grown flap- 
pers of the black duck; they all went under water. 



Waterfowl 69 

and he remained just above, grasping at any one 
that appeared, and forcing them to go under with- 
out getting a chance to breathe. Soon he had sin- 
gled out one ; when kept down a shorter and shorter 
time at each dive, it soon grew exhausted, was a Ht- 
tle too slow in taking a dive, and was grasped in the 
talons of its foe. 

In duck-shooting where there are reeds, grass, 
and water-lilies the cripples should be killed at once, 
even at the cost of burning some additional powder, 
many kinds of waterfowl being very expert at div- 
ing. Others, as widgeon and shoveler, do not dive, 
merely trying to hide in some hole in the bank; 
and these are generally birds that fall to the touch 
of shot much more easily than is the case with their 
tougher relatives. 

There are two or three species of birds tolerably 
common over the plains which we do not often reg- 
ularly hunt, but which are occasionally shot for the 
table. These are the curlew, the upland or grass 
plover, and the golden plover. All three kinds be- 
long to the family of what are called wading birds ; 
but with us it is rare to see any one of them near 
water. 

The curlew is the most conspicuous; indeed its 
loud, incessant clamor, its erect carriage, and the 
intense curiosity which possesses it, and which makes 
it come up to circle around any strange object, all 
combine to make it in springtime one of the most 
conspicuous features of plains hfe. At that time 
curlews are seen in pairs or small parties, keeping 



70 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

to the prairies and grassy uplands. They are never 
silent, and their discordant noise can be heard half 
a mile off. Whenever they discover a wagon or a 
man on horseback, they fly toward him, though usu- 
ally taking good care to keep out of gunshot. They 
then fly over and round the object, calling all the 
time, and sometimes going off to one side, where 
they will light and run rapidly through the grass; 
and in this manner they will sometimes accompany 
a hunter or traveler for miles, scaring off all game. 
By the end of July or August they have reared their 
young; they then go in small flocks, are compara- 
tively silent, and are yery good eating. I have never 
made a practice of shooting them, though I have 
fired at them sometimes with the rifle, and in this 
way have now and then killed one ; twice I have hit 
them on the wing with this weapon, while they were 
soaring slowly about above me, occasionally passing 
pretty near. 

The grass plover is found in the same places as 
the curlew, and like it breeds with us. Its flesh is 
just as good, and it has somewhat the same habits, 
but is less wary, noisy, and inquisitive. The golden 
plover is only found during the migrations, when 
large flocks may sometimes be seen. They are de- 
licious eating; the only ones I have ever shot have 
been killed with the little ranch gun, when riding 
round the ranch, or traveling from one point to 
another. 

Like the grouse, and other ground-nesting birds, 
the curlews and plovers during breeding-time have 



Waterfowl 71 

for their chief foes the coyotes, badgers, skunks, and 
other flesh-eating prowlers; and as all these are 
greatly thinned off by the cattlemen, with their fire- 
arms and their infinitely more deadly poison, the 
partial and light settlement of the country that ac- 
companies the cattle industry has had the effect of 
making all these birds more plentiful than before; 
and most unlike the large game, game birds bid fair 
to increase in numbers during the next few years. 

The skunks are a nuisance in more ways than one. 
They are stupid, familiar beasts, with a great pre- 
dilection for visiting camps, and the shacks or huts 
of the settlers, to pick up any scraps of meat that 
may be lying round. I have time and again known 
a skunk to actually spend several hours of the night 
in perseveringly digging a hole underneath the logs 
of a hut, so as to get inside among the inmates. The 
animal then hunts about among them, and of course 
no one will willingly molest it ; and it has often been 
known to deliberately settle down upon and begin 
to eat one of the sleepers. The strange and terrible 
thing about these attacks is that in certain districts 
and at certain times the bite of the skunk is surely 
fatal, producing hydrophobia; and many cowmen, 
soldiers, and hunters have annually died from this 
cause. There is no wild beast in the West, no mat- 
ter what its size and ferocity, so dreaded by old 
plainsmen as this seemingly harmless little beast. 

I remember one rather ludicrous incident con- 
nected with a skunk. A number of us, among whom 
was a huge, happy-go-lucky Scotchman, who went 



72 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

by the name of Sandy, were sleeping in a hut, when 
a skunk burrowed under the logs and got in. Hear- 
ing it moving about among the tin pans Sandy 
struck a light, was much taken by the familiarity of 
the pretty black and white little animal, and, as 
it seemed in his eyes a curiosity, took a shot at it 
with his revolver. He missed ; the skunk, for a won- 
der, retired promptly without taking any notice of 
the attack; and the rest of the alarmed sleepers, 
when informed of the cause of the shot, cursed the 
Scotchman up hill and down dale for having so 
nearly brought dire confusion on them all. The 
latter took the abuse very philosophically, merely re- 
marking : "I'm glad a did na kill him mysel' ; he 
seemed such a dacent wee beastie." The sequel 
proved that neither the skunk nor Sandy had learned 
any wisdom by the encounter, for half an hour later 
the "dacent wee beastie" came back, and this time 
Sandy fired at him with fatal effect. Of course the 
result was a frantic rush of all hands from the hut, 
Sandy exclaiming with late but sincere repentance: 
*'A did na ken 't wad cause such a tragadee." 

Besides curlew and plover there are at times, espe- 
cially during the migrations, a number of species of 
other waders to be found along the streams and pools 
in the cattle region. Yellowlegs, yelper, willet, mar- 
lin, dough bird, stilt, and avocet are often common, 
but they do not begin to be as plentiful as they are 
in the more fertile lands to the eastward, and the 
ranchmen never shoot at them or follow them as 
game birds. 



Waterfowl 73 

A more curious bird than any of these is the plains 
plover, which avoids the v^ater and seems to prefer 
the barren plateaus and almost desert-like reaches of 
sage-brush and alkali. Plains plovers are pretty 
birds, and not at all shy. In fall they are fat and 
good eating, but they are not plentiful enough to 
be v^orth going after. Sometimes they are to be 
seen in the most seemingly unlikely places for a 
wader to be. Last spring one pair nested in a broken 
piece of Bad Lands near my ranch, where the ground 
is riven and twisted into abrupt, steep crests and 
deep canyons. The soil is seemingly wholly unfitted 
to support bird life, as it is almost bare of vegeta- 
tion, being covered with fossil plants, shells, fishes, 
etc. — all of which objects, by the way, the frontiers- 
man, who is much given to broad generalization, 
groups together under the startling title of "stone 
clams." 



Vol. IV. 



CHAPTER III 

THE GROUSE OF THE NORTHERN CATTLE 
PLAINS 

TO my mind there is no comparison between 
sport with the rifle and sport with the shot- 
gun. The rifle is the freeman's weapon. The man 
who uses it well in the chase shows that he can 
at need use it also in war with human foes. I 
would no more compare the feat of one who bags 
his score of ducks or quail with that of him who 
fairly hunts down and slays a buck or bear, than I 
would compare the skill necessary to drive a buggy 
with that required to ride a horse across country; 
or the dexterity acquired in handling a billiard cue 
with that shown by a skilful boxer or oarsman. 
The difference is not one of degree; it is one of 
kind. 

I am far from decrying the shotgun. It is al- 
ways pleasant as a change from the rifle, and in the 
Eastern States it is almost the only firearm which 
we now have a chance to use. But out in the cattle 
country it is the rifle that is always carried by the 
ranchman who cares for sport. Large game is 
still that which is sought after, and most of the 
birds killed are either simply slaughtered for the 
pot, or else shot fg^* the sake of variety, while 

(74) 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 75 

really after deer or antelope; though every now 
and then I have taken a day with the shotgun 
after nothing else but prairie fowl. 

The sharp-tailed prairie fowl is much the most 
plentiful of the feathered game to be found on the 
northern cattle plains, where it replaces the com- 
mon prairie chicken so abundant on the prairies to 
the east and southeast of the range of our birds. 
In habits it is much like the latter, being one of 
the grouse which keep to the open, treeless tracts, 
though it is far less averse to timber than is its 
nearest relative, and often is found among the 
Cottonwood trees and thick brush which fringe 
the streams. I have never noticed that its habits 
when pursued differ much from those of the com- 
mon prairie chicken, though it is perhaps a little 
more shy, and is certainly much more apt to light 
on a tree like the ruffed grouse. It is, however, 
essentially a bird of the wilds, and it is a curious 
fact that it seems to retreat before civilization, con- 
tinually moving westward as the wheat fields ad- 
vance, w^hile its place is taken by the common form, 
which seems to keep pace with the settlement of 
the country. Like the latter bird, and unlike the 
ruffed grouse and blue grouse, which have white 
meat, its flesh is dark, and it is very good eating 
from about the middle of August to the middle of 
November, after which it is a little tough. 

As already said, the ranchmen do not often make 
a regular hunt after these grouse. This is partly 
because most of them look with something akin 



76 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

to contempt upon any firearm but the rifle or revol- 
ver, and partly because it is next to impossible to 
keep hunting-dogs very long on the plains. The 
only way to check in any degree the ravages of 
the wolves is by the most liberal use of strychnine, 
and the offal of any game killed by a cattleman is 
pretty sure to be poisoned before being left, while 
the 'Svolfer," or professional wolf-killer, strews his 
bait everywhere. It thus comes about that any dog 
who is in the habit of going any distance from the 
house is almost sure to run across and eat some 
of the poisoned meat, the effect of which is certain 
death. The only time I have ever shot sharp-tailed 
prairie fowl over " dogs was during a trip to the 
eastward with my brother, which will be described 
further on. Out on the plains I have occasionally 
taken a morning with the shotgun after them, but 
more often have either simply butchered them for 
the pot, when out of meat, or else have killed a few 
with the rifle when I happened to come across them 
while after deer or antelope. 

Occasions frequently arise, in living a more or 
less wild life, when a man has to show his skill 
in shifting for himself; when, for instance, he has 
to go out and make a foray upon the grouse, neither 
for sport, nor yet for a change of diet, but actually 
for food. Under such circumstances he of course 
pays no regard to the rules of sport which would 
govern his conduct on other occasions. If a man's 
dinner for several consecutive days depends upon 
a single shot, he is a fool if he does not take every 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 77 

advantage he can. I remember, for instance, one 
time when we were traveHng along the valley of 
the Powder River, and got entirely out of fresh 
meat, owing to my making a succession of ludi- 
crously bad misses at deer. Having had my faith 
in my capacity to kill anything whatever with the 
rifle a good deal shaken, I started off one morning 
on horseback with the shotgun. Until nearly noon 
I saw nothing ; then, while riding through a barren- 
looking bottom, I happened to spy some prairie 
fowl squatting close to the ground underneath a 
sage bush. It was some minutes before I could 
make out what they were, they kept so low and so 
quiet, and their color harmonized so well with 
their surroundings. Finally I was convinced that 
they were grouse, and rode my horse slowly by 
them. When opposite, I reined him in and fired, 
killing the whole bunch of five birds. Another 
time at the ranch our supply of fresh meat gave 
out entirely, and I sallied forth with the ranch 
gun, intent, not on sport, but on slaughter. It 
was late fall, and as I rode along in the dawn (for 
the sun was not up) a small pack of prairie fowl 
passed over my head and lit on a dead tree that 
stood out some little distance from a grove of 
cottonwoods. They paid little attention to me, 
but they are so shy at that season that I did not 
dare to try to approach them on foot, but let the 
horse jog on at the regular cow-pony gait — a kind 
of single-foot pace, between a walk and a trot, — 
and as I passed by fired into the tree and killed 



78 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

four birds. Now, of course I would not have 
dreamed of taking either of these shots had I been 
out purely for sport, and neither needed any more 
skill than would be shown in killing hens in a 
barnyard; but, after all, when one is hunting for 
one's dinner he takes an interest in his success which 
he would otherwise lack, and on both occasions 
I felt a most unsportsmanlike glee when I found 
how many I had potted. 

The habits of this prairie fowl vary greatly at 
different seasons of the year. It is found pretty 
much everywhere within moderate distance of water, 
for it does not frequent the perfectly dry wastes 
where we find the great sage cock. But it is equally 
at home on the level prairie and among the steep 
hills of the Bad Lands. When on the ground it 
has rather a comical look, for it stands very high 
on its legs, carries its sharp little tail cocked up 
like a wren's, and when startled stretches its neck 
out straight; altogether it gives one the impression 
of being a very angular bird. Of course it crouches, 
and moves about when feeding, like any other grouse. 

One of the strangest, and to me one of the most 
attractive, sounds of the prairie is the hollow boom- 
ing made by the cocks in spring. Before the snow 
has left the ground they begin, and at the break 
of morning their deep resonant calls sound from 
far and near, for in still weather they can be heard 
at an immense distance. I hardly know how to 
describe the call; indeed it can not be described 
in words. It has a hollow, vibrant sound like that 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 79 

of some wind instrument, and would hardly be 
recognized as a bird note at all. I have heard it 
at evening, but more often shortly after dawn; 
and I have often stopped and listened to it for 
many minutes, for it is as strange and weird a form 
of natural music as any I know. At the time of 
the year when they utter these notes the cocks 
gather together in certain places and hold dancing 
rings, posturing and strutting about as they face 
and pass each other. 

The nest is generally placed in a tuft of gTass 
or under a sage bush in the open, but occasionally 
in the brushwood near a stream. The chicks are 
pretty little balls of mottled brown and yellow down. 
The mother takes great care of them, leading them 
generally into some patch of brushwood, but often 
keeping them out in the deep grass. Frequently 
when out among the cattle I have ridden my horse 
almost over a hen with a brood of chicks. The 
little chicks first attempt to run off in single file; 
if discovered they scatter and squat down under 
clods of earth or tufts of grass. Holding one in 
my hand near my pocket, it scuttled into it Hke a 
flash. The mother, when she sees her brood dis- 
covered, tumbles about through the grass as if 
wounded, in the effort to decoy the foe after her. 
If she is successful in this, she takes a series of 
short flights, keeping just out of reach of her pur- 
suer, and when the latter has been lured far enough 
from the chicks the hen rises and flies off at a 
humming speed. 



8o Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

By the middle of August the young are well 
enough grown to shoot, and are then most deHcious 
eating. Different coveys at this time vary greatly 
in their behavior if surprised feeding in the open. 
Sometimes they will not permit of a very close ap- 
proach, and will fly off after one or two have been 
shot; while again they will show perfect indiffer- 
ence to the approach of man, and will allow the lat- 
ter to knock off the heads of five or six with his 
rifle before the rest take the alarm and fly off. They 
now go more or less all over the open ground, but 
are especially fond of frequenting the long grass in 
the bottoms of the coulies and ravines and the dense 
brush along the edges of the creeks and in the val- 
leys ; there they will invariably be found at midday, 
and will lie till they are almost trodden on before 
rising. 

Late in the month of August one year we had been 
close-herding a small bunch of young cattle on a 
bottom about a mile square, walled in by bluffs, and 
with, as an inlet, a long, dry creek running back 
many miles into the Bad Lands, where it branched 
out into innumerable smaller creeks and coulies. We 
wished to get the cattle accustomed to the locality, 
for animals are more apt to stray when first brought 
on new ground than at any later period; so each 
night we "bedded" them on the level bottom — that 
is, gathering them together on the plain, one of us 
would ride slowly and quietly round, and round the 
herd, heading off and turning back into it all beasts 
that tried to stray off, but carefully avoiding dis- 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 8i 

turbing them or making any unusual noise ; and by 
degrees they would all lie down, close together. This 
"bedding down" is always done when traveling with 
a large herd, when, of course, it needs several cow- 
boys to do it ; and in such cases some of the cowboys 
keep guard all the time, walking their horses round 
the herd, and singing and calling to the cattle all 
night long. The cattle seem to like to hear the hu- 
man voice, and it tends to keep them quiet and free 
from panic. Often when camping near some great 
cattle outfit I have lain awake at night for an hour 
or over listening to the wild, not unmusical, calls of 
the cowboys as they rode round the h^Jf-slumbering 
steers. In the clear, still night air the calls can be 
heard for a mile and more, and I like to listen to 
them as they come through the darkness, half mel- 
lowed by the distance, for they are one of the char- 
acteristic sounds of plains life. Texan steers often 
give considerable trouble before they can be bedded, 
and are prone to stampede, especially in a thunder- 
storm. But with the little herd we were at this time 
guarding there was no difficulty whatever, the ani- 
mals being grade shorthorns of Eastern origin. Af- 
ter seeing them quiet we would leave them for the 
night, again riding out early in the morning. 

On every occasion when we thus rode out in the 
morning we saw great numbers of prairie fowl feed- 
ing in the open plain In small flocks, each evidently 
composed of a hen and her grown brood. They 
would often be right round the cattle, and went in- 
differently among the sage brush or out on the short 



82 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

prairie grass. They flew into the bottom from some 
distance off about daybreak, fed for a couple of 
hours, and soon after sunrise again took wing and 
flew up along the course of the dry creek mentioned 
above. While on the bottom they were generally 
quite shy, not permitting anything like a close ap- 
proach before taking wing. Their habit of crowing 
or clucking while flying off is very noticeable ; it is, 
by the way, a most strongly characteristic trait of 
this species. I have been especially struck by it when 
shooting in Minnesota, where both the sharp-tail 
and the common prairie fowl are found ; the contrast 
between the loisiness of one bird and the quiet of 
the other was very marked. If one of us approached 
a covey on horseback the birds would, if they thought 
they were unobserved, squat down close to the 
ground; more often they would stand very erect, 
and walk off. If we came too close to one it would 
utter a loud kuk-kuk-kuk, and be off, at every few 
strokes of its wings repeating the sound — a kind of 
crowing cluck. This is the note they utter when 
alarmed, or when calling to one another. When a 
flock are together and undisturbed they keep up a 
sociable garrulous cackling. 

Every morning by the time the sun had been up 
a little while the grouse had all gone from the bot- 
tom, but later in the day while riding along the creek 
among the cattle we often stumbled upon little flocks. 
We fired at them with our revolvers whenever we 
were close enough, but the amount we got in this 
way was very limited, and as we were rather stinted 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 83 

for fresh meat, the cattle taking up so much of our 
time as to prevent our going after deer, I made up 
my mind to devote a morning to hunting up the 
creeks and coulies for grouse, with the shotgun. 

Accordingly the next morning I started, just about 
the time the last of the flocks were flying away from 
their feeding-ground on the bottom. I trudged 
along on foot, not wanting to be bothered by a 
horse. The air was fresh and cool, though the cloud- 
less sky boded a hot noon. As I walked by the cat- 
tle they stopped grazing and looked curiously at me, 
for they were unused to seeing any man not on 
horseback. But they did not offer to molest me; 
Texan or even Northern steers bred on the more 
remote ranges will often follow and threaten a foot- 
man for miles. While passing among the cattle it 
was amusing to see the actions of the little cow bunt- 
ings. They were very familiar little birds, lighting 
on the backs of the beasts, and keeping fluttering 
round their heads as they walked through the grass, 
hopping up into the air all the time. At first I could 
not make out what they were doing; but on watch- 
ing them closely saw that they were catching the 
grasshoppers and moths which flew into the air to 
avoid the cattle's hoofs. They are as tame with 
horsemen ; while riding through a patch of tall grass 
a flock of buntings will often keep circling within 
a couple of yards of the horse's head, seizing the 
insects as they fly up before him. 

The valley through which the creek ran was quite 
wide, bordered by low buttes. After a heavy rain- 



84 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

fall the w(ater rushes through the at other times dry 
bed in a foaming torrent, and it thus cuts it down 
into a canyon-like shape, making it a deep, winding, 
narrow ditch, with steep sides. Along the edges of 
this ditch were dense patches, often quite large, of 
rose-bushes, bullberry bushes, ash, and wild cherry, 
making almost impenetrable thickets, generally not 
over breast high. In the bottom of the valley, along 
the edges of the stream bed, the grass was long and 
coarse, entirely different from the short fine bunch 
grass a little further back, the favorite food of the 
cattle. 

Almost as soon as I had entered the creek, in 
walking through a small patch of brush I put up 
an old cock, as strong a flyer as the general run of 
October birds. Off he went, with a whirr, clucking 
and crowing; I held the little i6-bore fully two feet 
ahead of him, pulled the trigger, and down he came 
into the bushes. The sharp-tails fly strongly and 
steadily, springing into the air when they rise, and 
then going off in a straight line, alternately sailing 
and giving a succession of rapid wing-beats. Some- 
times they will sail a long distance with set wings 
before alighting, and when they are passing over- 
head with their wings outstretched each of the sep- 
arate wing feathers can be seen, rigid and distinct. 

Picking up and pocketing my bird I walked on, 
and on turning round a shoulder of the bluffs saw 
a pair of sharp-tails sitting sunning themselves on 
the top of a bullberry bush. As soon as they saw 
me they flew off a short distance and lit in the bed 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 85 

of the creek. Rightly judging that there were more 
birds than those I had seen, I began to beat with great 
care the patches of brush and long grass on both 
sides of the creek, and soon was rewarded by some 
very pretty shooting. The covey was a large one, 
composed of two or three broods of young prairie 
fowl, and I struck on the exact place, a slight hollow 
filled with low brush and tall grass, where they were 
lying. They lay very close, and my first notice of 
their presence w^as given by one that I almost trod 
on, which rose from fairly between my feet. A 
young grouse at this season offers an easy shot, and 
he was dropped without difficulty. At the report 
two others rose and I got one. When I had barely 
reloaded, the rest began to get up, singly or two or 
three at a time, rising straight up to clear the edge 
of the hollow, and making beautiful marks; when 
the last one had been put up I had down seven birds, 
of which I picked up six, not being able to find the 
other. A little further on I put up and shot a sin- 
gle grouse, which fell into a patch of briars I could 
not penetrate. Then for some time I saw nothing, 
although beating carefully through every likely- 
looking place. One patch of grass, but a few feet 
across, I walked directly through without rousing 
anything; happening to look back when I had gone 
some fifty yards, I was surprised to see a dozen 
heads and necks stretched up, and eying me most 
inquisitively; their owners were sharp-tails, a covey 
of which I had almost walked over without their 
making a sign. I strode back; but at my first step 



86 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

they all stood up straight, with their absurd little 
tails held up in the air, and at the next step away 
they went, flying off a quarter of a mile and then 
scattering in the brushy hollows where a coulie 
headed up into the buttes. (Grouse at this season 
hardly ever light in a tree.) I marked them down 
carefully and tramped all through the place, yet I 
only succeeded in putting up two, of which I got one 
and missed the other with both barrels. After that 
I walked across the heads of the coulies, but saw 
nothing except in a small swale of high grass, where 
there was a little covey of five, of which I got two 
with a right and left. It was now very hot, and I 
made for a spring which I knew ran out of a cliff 
a mile or two off. There I stayed till long after the 
shadows began to lengthen, when I started home- 
ward. For some miles I saw nothing, but as the 
,evening came on the grouse began to stir. A small 
party flew over my head, and though I missed them 
with both barrels, either because I miscalculated the 
distance or for some other reason, yet I marked 
them down very well, and when I put them up again 
got two. Three times afterward I came across 
cove3^s, either flying or walking out from the edges 
of the brushes, and I got one bird out of each, 
reaching home just after sunset with fifteen sharp- 
tails strung over my back. Of course working after 
grouse on an August day in this manner, without a 
dog, is very tiring, and no great bag can be made 
without a pointer or setter. 

In September the sharp-tails begin to come out 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 87 

from the brushy coulies and creek bottoms, and to 
wander out among the short grass of the ravines 
and over the open prairie. They are at first not 
very shy, and in the early part of the month I have 
once or twice had good sport with them. Once I 
took a companion in the buckboard, and drove dur- 
ing the course of the day twenty or twenty-five miles 
along the edge of the rolling prairie, crossing the 
creeks, and skirting the wooded basins where the 
Bad Lands began. We came across quite a num- 
ber of coveys, which in almost all cases waited for 
us to come up, and as the birds did not rise all to- 
gether, I got three or four shots at each covey, and 
came home with ten and a half couple. 

A little later the birds become shy and acquire 
their full strength of wing. They now wander far 
out on the prairie, and hardly ever make any effort 
to squat down and conceal themselves in the mar- 
velous way which they have earlier in the season, 
but, on the contrary, trust to their vigilance and their 
powers of flight for their safety. On bare ground 
it is now impossible to get anywhere near them, but 
if they are among sage brush or in other low cover 
they afford fine sport to a good shot, with a close- 
shooting, strong-hitting gun. I i"emember one even- 
ing, while coming over with a wagon team from the 
headwaters of O'Fallon Creek, across the Big 
Sandy, when it became a matter of a good deal of 
interest for us to kill something, as otherwise we 
would have had very little to eat. We had camped 
near a succession of small pools, containing one or 



88 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

two teal, which I shot; but a teal is a small bird 
when placed before three hungry men. Sharp-tails, 
however, were quite numerous, having come in from 
round about, as evening came on, to drink. They 
were in superb condition, stout and heavy, with 
clean, bright plumage, but very shy; and they rose 
so far off and flew so strongly and swiftly that 
a good many cartridges were spent before four of 
the plump, white-bellied birds were brought back 
to the wagon in my pockets. 

Later than this they sometimes unite into great 
packs containing hundreds of individuals, and then 
show a strong preference for the timbered ravines 
and the dense woods and underbrush of the river 
bottoms, the upper branches of the trees being their 
favorite resting-places. On very cold mornings, 
when they are feeling numb and chilled, a man 
can sometimes get very close up to them, but as a 
rule they are very wild, and the few I have killed 
at this season of the year have been shot with the 
rifle, either from a tree or when standing out on 
the bare hillsides, at a considerable distance. They 
offer very pretty marks for target practice with 
the rifle, and it needs a good shot to hit one at 
eighty or a hundred yards. 

But though the shotgun is generally of no use 
late in the season, yet last December I had a good 
afternoon's sport with it. There was a light snow 
falling, and having been in the house all the morn- 
ing, I determined to take a stroll out in the after- 
noon with the shotgun. A couple of miles from the 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 89 

house was a cedar canyon; that is, a canyon one 
of whose sides was densely wooded with gnarled, 
stunted evergreens. This had been a favorite re- 
sort for the sharp-tails for some time, and it was 
especially likely that they would go to it during a 
storm, as it afforded fine shelter, and also food. 
The buttes bounding it on the side where the trees 
were, rose to a sharp crest, which extended along 
with occasional interruptions for over a mile, and 
by walking along near this and occasionally looking 
out over it, I judged I would get up close to the 
grouse, while the falling snow and the wind would 
deaden the report of the gun, and not let it scare all 
the prairie fowl out of the canyon at 'the first fire. 
It came out as I had planned and expected. I 
clambered up to the crest near the mouth of the 
gorge, braced myself firmly, and looked over the top. 
At once a dozen sharp-tails, who had perched in the 
cedar tops almost at my feet, took wing, crossed 
over the canyon, and as they rose all in a bunch 
to clear the opposite wall I fired both barrels into 
the bunch, and two of the birds dropped down to 
the bottom of the ravine. They fell on the snow- 
covered open ground where I could easily find them 
again, and as it would have been a great and use- 
less labor to have gone down for them, I left them 
where they were and walked on along the crest. 
Before I had gone a hundred yards I had put up 
another sharp-tail from a cedar and killed him 
in fine style as he sailed off below me. The snow 
and bad weather seemed to make the prairie fowl 



90 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

disinclined to move. There must have been a good 
many score of them scattered in bunches among 
the cedars, and as I walked along I put up a covey 
or a single bird every two or three hundred yards. 
They were always started when I was close up to 
them, and the nature of the place made them offer 
excellent shots as they went off, while when killed 
they dropped down on the snow-covered canyon 
bottom where they could be easily recovered on my 
walk home. When the sharp-tails had once left the 
canyon they scattered among the broken buttes. I 
tried to creep up to one or two, but they were fully 
as wild and watchful as deer, and would not let 
me come within a hundred yards of them; so I 
turned back, climbed down into the canyon, and 
walked homeward through it, picking up nine birds 
on the way, the result of a little over an hour's 
shooting. Most of them were dead outright; and 
the two or three who had been only wounded were 
easily followed by the tracks they made in the tell- 
tale snow. 

Most of the prairie fowl I have killed, however, 
have not been obtained in the course of a day or 
an afternoon regularly spent after them for the 
sake of the sport, but have simply been shot with 
whatever weapon came handy, because we actually 
needed them for immediate use. On more than 
one occasion I would have gone supperless or din- 
nerless had it not been for some of these grouse; 
and one such instance I will give. 

One November, about the middle of the month, 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 91 

we had driven in a beef herd (which we wished 
to ship to the cattle yards), round the old canton- 
ment building, in which a few years ago troops 
had been stationed to guard against Indian out- 
breaks. Having taken care of the beef herd, I 
determined to visit a little bunch of cattle which 
was some thirty-five miles down the river, under 
the care of one of my men — a grizzled old fellow, 
born in Maine, w^hose career had been varied to an 
extent only possible in America, he having succes- 
sively followed the occupations of seaman, druggist, 
clerk, buffalo hunter, and cowboy. 

I intended to start about noon, but there was so 
much business to settle that it was an hour and 
a half afterward before I put spurs to the smart 
little cow-pony and loped briskly down the valley. 
It was a sharp day, the mercury wxll down toward 
zero; and the pony, fresh and untired, and impa- 
tient of standing in the cold, went along at a good 
rate ; but darkness sets in so early at this season that 
I had not gone many miles before I began to fear 
that I would not reach the shack by nightfall. The 
well-beaten trail followed along the bottoms for some 
distance and then branched out into the Bad Lands, 
leading up and down through the ravines and 
over the ridge crests of some very rough and broken 
country, and crossing a great level plateau, over 
which the wind blew savagely, sweeping the pow- 
dery snow clean off of the bent blades of short, 
brown grass. After making a wide circle of some 
twelve miles the trail again came back to the Little 



92 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

Missouri, and led along the bottoms between the 
rows of high bluffs, continually crossing and re- 
crossing- the river. These crossings were difficult 
and disagreeable for the horse, as they always are 
when the ice is not quite heavy enough to bear. 
The water had not frozen until two or three days 
before, and the cold snap had not yet lasted long 
enough to make the ice solid, besides which it was 
covered with about half an inch of light snow that 
had fallen, concealing all bad-looking places. The 
ice after bearing the cautiously stepping pony for a 
few yards would suddenly break and let him down 
to the bottom, and he would then have to plunge 
and paw his way through to the opposite shore. 
Often it is almost impossible to make a pony attempt 
the crossing under such circumstances; and I have 
seen ponies which had to be knocked down and 
pulled across glare ice on their sides. If the horse 
slips and falls it is a serious matter to the rider; 
for a wetting in such cold weather, with a long 
horseback journey to make, is no joke. 

I was still several miles from the hut I was 
striving to reach when the sun set; and for some 
time previous the valley had been in partial dark- 
ness, though the tops of the sombre bluffs around 
were still lit up. The pony loped steadily on along 
the trail, which could be dimly made out by the 
starlight. I hurried the willing little fellow all I 
could without distressing him, for though I knew 
the road pretty well, yet I doubted if I could find 
it easily in perfect darkness; and the clouds were 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 93 

gathering overhead with a rapidity which showed 
that the starhght would last but a short while, 
the light snow rendered the hoof beats of my horse 
muffled and indistinct; and almost the only sound 
that broke the silence was the longdrawn, mel- 
ancholy howling of a wolf, a quarter of a mile off. 
When we came to the last crossing the pony was 
stopped and watered ; and we splashed through over 
a rapid where the ice had formed only a thin crust. 
On the opposite side was a large patch of cotton- 
woods thickly grown up with underbrush, the whole 
about half a mile square. In this was the cowboy's 
shack, but as it was now pitch dark I was unable 
to find it until I rode clean through to the cow- 
corral, which was out in the open on the other side. 
Here I dismounted^ groped around till I found the 
path, and then easily followed it to the shack. 

Rather to my annoyance the cowboy was away, 
having run out of provisions, as I afterward learned ; 
and of course he had left nothing to eat behind him. 
The tough little pony was, according to custom, 
turned loose to shift for himself; and I went into 
the low, windowless hut, which was less than twelve 
feet square. In one end was a great chimney-place, 
and it took but a short time to start a roaring fire 
which speedily made the hut warm and comfortable. 
Then I went down to the river with an axe and a 
pail, and got some water; I had carried a paper 
of tea in my pocket, and the tea-kettle was soon 
simmering away. I should have liked something 
to eat, but as I did not have it, the hot tea did 



94 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

not prove such a bad substitute for a cold and tired 
man. 

Next morning I salHed out at break of day with 
the rifle, for I was pretty hungry. As soon as I 
stepped from the hut I could hear the prairie fowl 
crowing and calling to one another from the tall 
trees. There were many score — many hundreds 
would perhaps be more accurate — scattered through 
the wood. Evidently they had been attracted by 
the good cover and by the thick growth of choke- 
cherries and wild plums. As the dawn brightened 
the sharp-tails kept up incessantly their hoarse cluck- 
ing, and small parties began to fly down from their 
roosts to the berry bushes. While perched up 
among the bare limbs of the trees, sharply outlined 
against the sky, they were very conspicuous. Gen- 
erally they crouched close down, with the head 
drawn in to the body and the feathers ruflled, but 
when alarmed or restless they stood up straight with 
their necks stretched out, looking very awkward. 
Later in the day they would have been wild and 
hard to approach, but I kept out of their sight, and 
sometimes got two or three shots at the same bird 
before it flew off. They offered beautiful marks, 
and I could generally get a rest for my rifle, while 
in the gray morning, before sunrise, I was not very 
conspicuous myself, and could get up close beneath 
where they were ; so I did not have much trouble in 
killing five, almost all of them shot very nearly 
where the neck joins the body, one having the head 
fairly cut off. Salt, like tea, I had carried with 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 9$ 

me, and it was not long before two of the birds, 
plucked and cleaned, were split open and roasting 
before the fire. And to me they seemed most de- 
licious food, although, even in November, the sharp- 
tails, while keeping their game flavor, have begun 
to be dry and tough, most unlike the tender and 
juicy young of August and September. 

The best day's work I ever did after sharp-tails 
was in the course of the wagon trip, already men- 
tioned, which my brother and I made through the 
fertile farming country to the eastward. We had 
stopped over night with a Norwegian settler who 
had taken and adapted to a farmhouse an old log 
trading-post of one of the fur companies, lying in 
the timber which fringed a river, and so stoutly built 
as to have successfully withstood the assaults of 
time. We were traveling in a light covered wagon, 
in which we could drive anywhere over the prairie. 
Our dogs would have made an Eastern sportsman 
blush, for when roughing it in the West we have 
to put up with any kind of mongrel makeshift, and 
the best dog gets pretty well battered after a season 
or two. I never had a better duck retriever than 
a little yellow cur, with hardly a trace of hunting 
blood in his veins. On this occasion we had a stiff- 
jointed old pointer with a stub tail, and a wild 
young setter pup, tireless and ranging very free (a 
Western dog on the prairies should cover five times 
the ground necessary for an Eastern one to get 
over), but very imperfectly trained. 

Half of the secret of success on a shooting trip 



96 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

lies in getting up early and working all day; and 
this at least we had learned, for we were off as soon 
as there was light enough by which to drive. The 
ground, of course, was absolutely fenceless, houses 
being many miles apart. Through the prairie, with 
its tall grass, in which the sharp-tails lay at night 
and during the day, were scattered great grain 
fields, their feeding-grounds in the morning and 
evening. Our plan was to drive from one field to 
another, getting out at each and letting the dogs 
hunt it over. The birds were in small coveys and 
lay fairly well to the dogs, though they rose much 
further off from us in the grain fields than they did 
later in the day when we flushed them from the 
tall grass of the prairie (I call it tall grass in con- 
tradistinction to the short bunch grass of the cattle 
plains to the westward) . Old stub-tail, though slow, 
was very stanch and careful, never flushing a bird, 
while the puppy, from pure heedlessness, and with 
the best intentions, would sometimes bounce into the 
midst of a covey before he knew of their presence. 
On the other hand, he covered twice the ground that 
the pointer did. The actual killing of the birds was a 
good deal like quail shooting in the East, except that 
it was easier, the marks being so much larger. When 
we came to a field we would beat through it a hun- 
dred yards apart, the dogs ranging in long diagonals. 
When either the setter or the pointer came to a 
stand, the other generally backed him. If the covey 
was near enough, both of us, otherwise, whichever 
was closest, walked cautiously up. The grouse gen- 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 97 

erally flushed before we came up to the dog, rising 
all together, so as to give only a right and left. 

When the morning was well advanced the grouse 
left the stubble fields and flew into the adjoining 
prairie. We marked down several coveys into one 
spot, where the ground was rolling and there were 
here and there a few bushes in the hollows. Care- 
fully hunting over this, we found two or three cov- 
eys and had excellent sport out of each. The sharp- 
tails in these places lay very close, and we had to 
walk them up, when they rose one at a time, and 
thus allowed us shot after shot ; whereas, as already 
said, earlier in the day we merely got a quick right 
and left at each covey. At least half the time we 
were shooting in our rubber overcoats, as the 
weather was cloudy and there were frequent flurries 
of rain. 

We rested a couple of hours at noon for lunch, 
and the afternoon's sport was simply a repetition 
of the morning's, except that we had but one dog to 
work with; for shortly after mid-day the stub-tail 
pointer, for his sins, encountered a skunk, with 
which he waged prompt and valiant battle — thereby 
rendering himself, for the balance of the time, 
wholly useless as a servant and highly offensive as 
a companion. 

The setter pup did well, ranging very freely, but 
naturally got tired and careless, flushing his birds 
half the time; and we had to stop when we still 
had a good hour of daylight left. Nevertheless we 
had in our wagon, when we came in at night, a 

E Vol. IV. 



98 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

hundred and five grouse, of which sixty-two had 
fallen to my brother's gun, and forty-three to mine. 
We would have done much better with more ser- 
viceable dogs ; besides, I was suffering all day long 
from a most acute colic, which was anything but 
a help to good shooting. 

Besides the sharp-tail there is but one kind of 
grouse found in the northern cattle plains. This 
is the sage cock, a bird the size of a young turkey, 
and, next to the Old World capercailzie or cock of 
the woods, the largest of the grouse family. It is 
a handsome bird with a long pointed tail and black 
belly, and is a very characteristic form of the re- 
gions which it inhabits. 

It is peculiarly a desert grouse, for though some- 
times found in the grassy prairies and on the open 
river bottoms, it seems really to prefer the dry arid 
wastes where the withered-looking sage brush and 
the spiny cactus are almost the only plants to be 
found, and where the few pools of water are so 
bitterly alkaline as to be nearly undrinkable. It is 
pre-eminently the grouse of the plains, and, unlike 
all of its relatives, is never found near trees ; indeed 
no trees grow in its haunts. 

As is the case with the two species of prairie 
fowl the cocks of this great bird become very noisy 
in the early spring. If a man happens at that season 
to be out in the dry plains which are frequented by 
the sage fowl he will hear in the morning, before 
sunrise, the deep, sonorous booming of the cocks, 
as they challenge one another or call to their mates. 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 99 

This call is uttered in a hollow, bass tone, and can 
be heard a long distance in still weather; it is diffi- 
cult to follow up, for it has a very ventriloquial 
effect. 

Unlike the sharp-tail the habits and haunts of the 
sage fowl are throughout the year the same, except 
that it grows shyer as the season advances, and oc- 
casionally wanders a little further than formerly 
from its birthplace. It is only found where the 
tough, scraggly wild sage abounds, and it feeds for 
most of the year solely on sage leaves, varying this 
diet in August and September by quantities of grass- 
hoppers. Curiously enough it does not possess any 
gizzard, such as most gallinaceous birds have, but 
has in its place a membranous stomach, suited to 
the digestion of its peculiar food. 

The little chicks follow their mother as soon as 
hatched, and she generally keeps them in the midst 
of some patch of sage brush so dense as to be almost 
impenetrable to man or beast. The little fellows 
skulk and dodge through the crooked stems so clev- 
erly that it is almost impossible to catch them. Early 
in August, when the brood is w^ell grown, the moth- 
er leads them out, and during the next two months 
they are more often found out on the grassy prai- 
ries than is the case at any other season. They 
do not form into packs like the prairie fowl as 
winter comes on, two broods at the outside oc- 
casionally coming together; and they then again 
retire to the more waste parts of the plains, living 
purely on sage leaves, and keeping closely to the 



loo Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

best-sheltered hollows until the ushering in of the 
springtime. 

In the early part of the season the young, and 
indeed their parents also, are tame and unsuspi- 
cious to the very verge of stupidity, and at this time 
are often known by the name of '^fool-hens" among 
the frontiersmen. They grow shyer as the season 
advances, and after the first of October are diffi- 
cult to approach, but even then are rarely as wild 
as the sharp-tails. 

It is commonly believed that the flesh of the 
sage fowl is uneatable, but this is very far from 
being the truth; on the contrary, it is excellent 
eating in August and September, when grasshop- 
pers constitute their chief food, and, if the birds 
are drawn as soon as shot, is generally perfectly 
palatable at other seasons of the year. The first 
time I happened to find this out was in the course 
of a trip taken with one of my foremen as a com- 
panion through the arid plains to the westward of 
the Little Missouri. We had been gone for two 
or three days and camped by a mud hole, which 
was almost dry, what water it still held being al- 
most as thick as treacle. Our luxuries being lim- 
ited, I bethought me of a sage cock which I had 
shot during the day and had hung to the saddle. I 
had drawn it as soon as it was picked up, and I 
made up my mind to try how it tasted. A good 
deal to our surprise, the meat, though dark and 
coarse-grained, proved perfectly well flavored, and 
was quite as good as wild-goose, which it much 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains loi 

resembled. Some young sage fowl, shot shortly 
afterward, proved tender and juicy, and tasted 
quite as well as sharp-tails. All of these birds had 
their crops crammed with grasshoppers, and doubt- 
less the nature of their food had much to do with 
their proving so good for the table. An old bird, 
which had fed on nothing but sage, and was not 
drawn when shot, would, beyond question, be very 
poor eating. Like the spruce grouse and the two 
kinds of prairie fowl, but unlike the ruffed grouse 
and blue grouse, the sage fowl has dark meat. 

In walking and running on the ground, sage 
fowl act much like common hens^ and can skulk 
through the sage brush so fast that it is often 
diffcult to make them take wing. When surprised 
they will sometimes squat flat down with their 
heads on the ground, when it is very difficult to 
make them out, as their upper parts harmonize 
curiously in color with the surroundings. I have 
never known of their being shot over a dog, and, 
indeed, the country where they are found is so dry 
and difficult that no dog would be able to do any 
work in it. 

When flushed, they rise with a loud whirring, 
laboring heavily, often clucking hoarsely; when 
they get fairly under way they move along in a 
strong, steady flight, sailing most of the time, but 
giving, every now and then, a succession of power- 
ful wing-beats, and their course is usually sustained 
for a mile or over before they light. They are 
very easy marks, but require hard hitting to bring 



I02 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

them down, for they are very tenacious of Hfe. 
On one occasion I came upon a flock and shot an 
old cock through the body with the rifle. He fell 
over, fluttering and kicking, and I shot a young 
one before the rest of the flock rose. To my aston- 
ishment the old cock recovered himself and made 
off after them, actually flying for half a mile before 
he dropped. When I found him he was quite dead, 
the ball having gone clean through him. It was a 
good deal as if a man had run a mile with a large 
grapeshot through his body. 

Most of the sage fowl I have killed have been 
shot with the rifle when I happened to run across 
a covey while out riding, and wished to take two or 
three of them back for dinner. Only once did I 
ever make a trip with the shotgun for the sole 
purpose of a day's sport with these birds. 

This was after having observed that there were 
several small flocks of sage fowl at home on a great 
plateau or high plain, crossed by several dry creeks, 
which was about eight miles from the cow-camp 
where I was staying; and I concluded that I would 
devote a day to their pursuit. Accordingly, one 
morning I started out on horseback with my double- 
barrel lo-bore and a supply of cartridges loaded 
with No. 4 shot ; one of my cowboys went with me 
carrying a rifle so as to be ready if we ran across 
any antelope. Our horses were fresh, and the only 
way to find the birds Avas to cover as much ground 
as possible; so as soon as we reached the plateau 
we loped across it in parallel lines till we struck one 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 103 

of the creeks, when we went up it, one on each side, 
at a good gait, and then crossed over to another, 
where we repeated the operation. It was nearly 
noon when, while going up the third creek, we ran 
into a covey of about fifteen sage fowl — a much 
larger covey than ordinary. They were down in the 
bottom of the creek, which here exhibited a forma- 
tion very common on the plains. Although now per- 
fectly dry, every series of heavy rainfalls changed it 
into a foaming torrent, which flowed down the val- 
ley in sharp curves, eating away the land into per- 
pendicular banks on the outside of each curve. Thus 
a series of small bottoms was formed, each fronted 
by a semicircular bluff, highest in the middle, and 
rising perfectly sheer and straight. At the foot of 
these bluffs, which varied from six to thirty feet in 
height, was the bed of the stream. In many of these 
creeks there will be a growth of small trees by the 
stream bed, where it runs under the bluffs, and per- 
haps pools of water will be found in such places 
even in times of drought. But on the creek where 
we found the sage fowl there were neither trees nor 
water, and the little bottoms were only covered with 
stunted sage brush. Dismounting and leaving my 
horse with the cowboy I walked down to the edge of 
the bottom, which was not more than thirty or forty 
yards across. The covey retreated into the brush, 
some of the birds crouching flat down, while the 
others walked or ran off among the bushes. They 
were pretty tame, and rose one at a time as I walked 
on. They had to rise over the low, semicircular 



I04 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

bluff in front of them, and, it being still early in 
the season, they labored heavily as they left the 
ground. I fired just as they topped the bluff, and 
as they were so close and large, and were going so 
slowly, I w'as able to knock over eight birds, hardly 
moving from my place during the entire time. On 
our way back we ran into another covey, a much 
smaller one, on the side of another creek ; of these I 
got a couple; and I got another out of still a third 
covey, which we found out in the open, but of which 
the birds all rose and made off together. We car- 
ried eleven birds back, most of them young and ten- 
der, and all of them good eating. 

In shooting grouse we sometimes ran across rab- 
bits. There are two kinds of these. One is the little 
cottontail, almost precisely similar in appearance to 
the common gray rabbit of the Eastern woods. It 
abounds in all the patches of dense cover along the 
river bottoms and in the larger creeks, and can be 
quite easily shot at all times, but especially when 
there is any snow on the ground. It is eatable but 
hardly ever killed except to poison and throw out 
as bait for the wolves. 

The other kind is the great jack-rabbit. This is 
a characteristic animal of the plains ; quite as much 
so as the antelope or prairie dog. It is not very 
abundant, but is found everywhere over the open 
ground, both on the prairie and those river bottoms 
which are not wooded, and in the more open valleys 
and along the gentle slopes of the Bad Lands. 
Sometimes it keeps to the patches of sage brush, and 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 105 

in such cases will lie close to the ground when ap- 
proached; but more often it is found in the short 
grass where there is no cover at all to speak of, and 
relies upon its speed for its safety. It is a comical- 
looking beast with its huge ears and long legs, and 
runs very fast, with a curious lop-sided gait, as if 
it was off its balance. After running a couple of 
hundred yards it will generally stop and sit up erect 
on its haunches to look round and see if it is pur- 
sued. In winter it turns snow-white except that the 
tips of the ears remain black. The flesh is dry, and 
I have never eaten it unless I could get nothing else. 

Jack-rabbits are not plentiful enough or valuable 
enough to warrant a man's making a hunting trip 
solely for their sakes ; and the few that I have shot 
have been killed with the rifle while out after other 
game. They offer beautiful marks for target prac- 
tice when they sit upon their haunches. But though 
hardly worth powder they afford excellent sport 
when coursed with greyhounds, being very fleet, and 
when closely pressed able to double so quickly that 
the dogs shoot by them. For reasons already given, 
however, it is diflicult to keep sporting dogs on the 
plains, though doubtless in the future coursing with 
greyhounds will become a recognized Western sport. 

This finishes the account of the small game of the 
northern cattle country. The wild turkey is not 
found with us; but it is an abundant bird further 
south, and eagerly followed by the ranchmen in 
whose neighborhood it exists. And as it is easily 
the king of all game birds, and as its pursuit is a 



io6 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

peculiarly American form of sport, some account of 
how it is hunted in the southern plains country may 
be worth reading. The following is an extract from 
a letter written to me by my brother, in December, 
1875, while he was in Texas, containing an account 
of some of his turkey-hunting experience in that 
State. The portion relating how the birds are 
coursed with greyhounds is especially markworthy; 
it reminds one of the method of killing the great 
bustard with gazehounds, as described in English 
sporting books of two centuries back. 

"Here, some hundred miles south and west of 
Fort McKavett, are the largest turkey roosts in the 
world. This beautiful fertile valley, through which 
the deep, silent stream of the Llano flows, is densely 
wooded with grand old pecan trees along its banks ; 
as are those of its minor tributaries which come 
boiling down from off the immense upland water- 
shed of the staked plains, cutting the sides of the 
^divide' into narrow canyons. The journey to this 
sportsman's paradise was over the long-rolling 
plains of western Texas. Hour after hour through 
the day's travel we would drop into the trough of 
some great plains-wave only to toil on up to the 
crest of the next, and be met by an endless vista of 
boundless, billowy-looking prairie. We were fol- 
lowing the old Fort Terret trail, its ruts cut so deep 
in the prairie soil by the heavy supply wagons that 
these ten years have not healed the scars in the 
earth's face. At last, after journeying for leagues 
through the stunted live oaks, we saw from the top 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 107 

of one of the larger divides a dark bluish line against 
the horizon, — the color of distant leafless trees, — 
and knew that it meant we should soon open out the 
valley. Another hour brought us over the last di- 
vide, and then our hunting grounds lay before and 
below us. All along through the unbroken natural 
fields the black-tail and prong-horn abound, and 
feast to their heart's content all the winter through 
on the white, luscious, and nutritious mesquite grass. 
Through the valley with its flashing silver stream 
ran the dark line of the famous pecan-tree forests — 
the nightly resting-place of that king of game birds, 
the wild turkey. It would sound like romancing to 
tell of the endless number and variety of the water- 
fowl upon the river; while the multitude of game 
fish inhabiting the waters make the days spent on the 
river with the rod rival in excitement and good sport 
the nights passed gun in hand among the trees in 
the roosts. Of course, as we are purely out on a 
turkey shoot, during the day no louder sport is per- 
mitted than whipping the stream, or taking the grey- 
hounds well back on the plains away from the river 
to course antelope, jack-rabbit, or maybe even some 
fine old gobbler himself. 

"When, after our journey, we reached the brink 
of the canyon, to drop down into the valley, pass 
over the lowlands, and settle ourselves comfortably 
in camp under the shadow of the old stockade fort 
by the river, was a matter of but a few hours. There 
we waited for the afternoon shadows to lengthen 
and the evening to come, when off we went up the 



io8 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

stream for five or six miles to a spot where some 
mighty forest monarchs with huge, bare, spreading 
limbs had caught the eye of one of our sporting 
scouts in the afternoon. Leaving our horses half a 
mile from the place, we walked silently along the 
river bank through the jungle to the roosting trees, 
where we scattered, and each man secreted himself 
as best he could in the underbrush, or in a hollow 
stump, or in the reeds of the river itself. The sun 
was setting, and over the hills and from the low- 
lands came the echoes of the familiar gobble, gobble, 
gobble, as each strutting, foolishly proud cock head- 
ed his admiring family for the roost, after their 
day's feeding on the uplands. Soon, as I lay close 
and hushed in my hiding-place, sounds like the 
clinking of silver, followed by w^hat seemed like a 
breath of the wind rushing through the trees, struck 
my ears. I hardly dared breathe, for the sounds 
were made by the snapping of a gobbler's quills 
and his rustling feathers; and immediately a mag- 
nificent old bird, swelling and clucking, bullying his 
wives and abusing his weaker children to the last, 
trod majestically down to the water's edge, and, 
after taking his evening drink, winged his way to 
his favorite bough above, where he was joined, one 
by one, by his family and relations and friends, who 
came by tens and dozens from the surrounding 
country. Soon in the rapidly darkening twilight the 
superb old pecan trees looked as if they were bend- 
ing under a heavy crop of the most odd-shaped and 
lively kind of fruit. The air was filled with the 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 109 

peevish pi-ou ! pi-ou ! of the sleepy birds. Gradually 
the noisy fluttering subsided, and the last faint 
unsettled peep even was hushed. Dead silence 
reigned, and we waited and watched. The moon 
climbed up, and in another hour, as we looked 
through the tree-tops, we could make out against the 
light background of the sky, almost as clearly as by 
day, the sleeping victims of our guns and rifles. A 
low soft whistle was passed along from man to man ; 
and the signal given, how different the scene be- 
came! A deafening report suddenly rang out into 
the silent night, a flash of light belched from the 
gun muzzle, and a heavy thud followed as twenty 
pounds of turkey struck the ground. In our silent 
moccasins we flitted about under the roost, and re- 
port after report on all sides told how good the sport 
was and how excellent the chance that the boys at 
McKavett would have plenty of turkeys at their 
Christmas dinner. The turkeys were so surprised 
by the sudden noise, so entirely unprepared for the 
visit of the sportsman to their secluded retreat, that 
they did not know what to make of it, often remain- 
ing stupidly on their branch after a companion five 
feet off had been shot down. With the last bird shot 
or flown away ended our evening's sport. All the 
dead birds were gathered together and strapped in 
bunches by our saddles and on the pack-mules. It 
does not take many pecan- and grass-fed turkeys to 
make a load, and back we trotted to camp, the steel 
hoofs striking into the prairie soil with a merry ring 
of triumph over the night's work. The hour was 



no Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

nearly midnight when we sat down to the dehcately 
browned turkey steaks in the mess tent, and reahzed 
that we had enjoyed the deHghts of one of the best 
sports in Texas — turkey-shooting in the roosts. 

"Early in the afternoon following the night's 
sport we left the fort mounted on fine three-quarter 
Kentucky thoroughbreds, and taking the eleven 
greyhounds, struck off six or eight miles into the 
plains. Then spreading into line we alternated dogs 
and horses, and keeping a general direction, beat up 
the small oak clumps, grass clusters, or mesquite 
jungles as we went along. Soon, with a loud whirr 
of wings, three or four turkeys rose out of the 
grass ahead, started up by one of the greyhounds; 
the rest of the party closed in from all sides; dogs 
and men choosing each the bird they marked as 
theirs. The turkey, after towering a bit, with wings 
set struck off at a pace like a bullet, and with eyes 
fixed upwards the hounds coursed after him. It 
was whip and spur for a mile as hard as horse, man, 
and hound could make the pace. The turkey at last 
came down nearer and nearer the ground, its small 
wings refusing to bear the weight of the heavy body. 
Finally, down he came and began running ; then the 
hounds closed in on him and forced him up again as 
is always the case. The second flight was not a 
strong one, and soon he was skimming ten or even 
a less number of feet from the ground. Now came 
the sport of it all; the hounds were bunched and 
running like a pack behind him. Suddenly old 
*Grimbeard,' in the heart of the pack, thought it 



Grouse of the Northern Cattle Plains 1 1 1 

was time for the supreme effort; with a rush 
he went to the front, and as a mighty spring carried 
him up in the air he snapped his clean, cruel fangs 
imder the brave old gobbler, who by a great effort 
rose just out of reach. One after another in the 
next twenty-five yards each hound made his trial 
and failed. xA.t last the old hound again made his 
rush, sprang up a wonderful height into the air, and 
cut the bird down as with a knife. 

''The first flight of a turkey when being coursed 
is rarely more than a mile, and the second about 
half as long. After that, if it gets up at all again, 
it is for very short flights so near the ground that 
it is soon cut down by any hound. The astonishing 
springs a greyhound who is an old hand at turkey 
coursing will make are a constant source of surprise 
and wonder to those fond of the sport. A turkey, 
after coming down from his first flight, will really 
perform the feat which fable attributes to the 
ostrich; that is, will run its head into a clump of 
bushes and stand motionless as if, since it can not 
see its foes, it were itself equally invisible. During 
the day turkeys are scattered all over the plains, and 
it is no unusual thing to get in one afternoon's ride 
eight or ten of them." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE DEER OF THE RIVER BOTTOMS 

OF all the large game of the United States, the 
white-tailed deer is the best known and the 
most widely distributed. Taking the Union as a 
whole, fully ten men will be found who have killed 
white-tail for one who has killed any other kind 
of large game. And it is the only ruminant animal 
which is able to live on in the land even when it 
has been pretty thickly settled. There is hardly 
a State wherein it does not still exist, at least in 
some out-of-the-way corner; and long after the elk 
and the buffalo have passed away, and when the 
big-horn and prong-horn have become rare indeed, 
the white-tail deer will still be common in certain 
parts of the country. 

When, less than five years ago, cattle were first 
driven on to the northern plains, the white-tail were 
the least plentiful and the least sought after of all 
the large game; but they have held their own as 
none of the others have begun to do, and are already 
in certain localities more common than any other 
kind, and indeed in many places are more common 
than all other kinds put together. The ranchmen 
along the Powder River, for instance, now have 
to content themselves with white-tail venison unless 

(112) 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 113 

they make long trips back among the hills. The 
same is rapidly getting to be true of the Little Mis- 
souri. This is partly because the skin and meat 
hunters find the chase of this deer to be the most 
tedious and least remunerative species of hunting, 
and therefore only turn their attention to it when 
there is nothing else left to hunt, and partly because 
the sheep and cattle and the herdsmen who follow 
them are less likely to trespass on their grounds 
than on the grounds of other game. The white- 
tail is the deer of the river bottoms and of the large 
creeks, whose beds contain plenty of brush and tim- 
ber running down into them. It prefers the densest 
cover, in which it lies hid all day, and it is especially 
fond of wet, swampy places, where a horse runs 
the risk of being engulfed. Thus it is very rarely 
jumped by accident, and when the cattle stray into 
its haunts, which is but seldom, the cowboys are 
not apt to follow them. Besides, unlike most other 
game, it has no aversion to the presence of cattle, 
and in the morning and evening will come out and 
feed freely among them. 

This last habit was the cause of our getting a 
fine buck a few days before last Christmas. The 
weather was bitterly cold, the spirit in the ther- 
mometer sometimes going down at night to 50° 
below zero and never for over a fortnight getting 
above — 10° (Fahrenheit). Snow covered the 
ground, to the depth, however, of but a few inches, 
for in the cattle country the snowfall is always 
light. When the cold is so great it is far from 



114 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

pleasant to be out-of-doors. Still a certain amount 
of riding about among the cattle and ponies had 
to be done, and almost every day was spent by at 
least one of us in the saddle. We wore the heaviest 
kind of all-wool under-clothing, with flannels, lined 
boots, and great fur coats, caps, and gauntlets or 
mittens, but yet after each ride one or the other 
of us would be almost sure to come in with a touch 
of the frost somewhere about him. On one ride 
I froze my nose and one cheek, and each of the 
men froze his ears, fingers, or toes at least once 
during the fortnight. This generally happened 
while riding over a plain or plateau with a strong 
wind blowing in our faces. When the wind was 
on our backs it was not bad fun to gallop along 
through the white weather, but when we had to face 
it, it cut through us like a keen knife. The ponies 
did not seem to mind the cold much, but the cattle 
were very uncomfortable, standing humped up in 
the bushes except for an hour or two at midday 
when they ventured out to feed; some of the young 
stock which were wintering on the range for the 
first time died from the exposure. A very weak 
animal we would bring into the cow-shed and feed 
with hay; but this was only done in cases of the 
direst necessity, as such an animal has then to be 
fed for the rest of the winter, and the quantity 
of hay is limited. In the Bad Lands proper, cattle 
do not wander far, the deep ravines affording them 
a refuge from the bitter icy blasts of the winter 
gales ; but if by any accident caught out on the open 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 115 

prairie in a blizzard, a herd will drift before it for 
maybe more than a hundred miles, until it finds a 
shelter capable of holding it. For this reason it 
is best to keep more or less of a look-out over all 
the bunches of beasts, riding about among them 
every few days, and turning back any herd that 
begins to straggle toward the open plains; though 
in winter, w^hen weak and emaciated, the cattle must 
be disturbed and driven as little as possible, or the 
loss among them will be fearful. 

One afternoon, while most of us were away from 
the ranch house, one of the cowboys, riding in from 
his day's outing over the range, brought w^ord that 
he had seen two white-tail deer, a buck and a doe, 
feeding with some cattle on the side of a hill across 
the river, and not much more than half a mile from 
the house. There was about an hour of daylight 
left, and one of the foremen, a tall, fine-looking 
fellow named Ferris, the best rider on the ranch, 
but not an unusually good shot, started out at once 
after the deer; for in the late fall and early winter 
we generally kill a good deal of game, as it then 
keeps well and serves as a food supply throughout 
the cold months; after January we hunt as little as 
possible. Ferris found the deer easily enough, but 
they started before he could get a standing shot 
at them, and when he fired as they ran, he only 
broke one of the buck's hind legs, just above the 
ankle. He followed it in the snow for several miles, 
across the river, and down near the house to the 
end of the bottom, and then back toward the house. 



ii6 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

The buck was a cunning old beast, keeping in the 
densest cover, and often doubling back on his trail 
and sneaking off to one side as his pursuer passed 
by. Finally it grew too dark to see the tracks any 
longer, and Ferris came home. 

Next morning early we went out to where he 
had left the trail, feeling very sure from his descrip- 
tion of the place (which was less than a mile from 
the house) that we would get the buck; for when 
he had abandoned the pursuit the deer was in a 
copse of bushes and young trees some hundreds of 
yards across, and in this it had doubtless spent the 
night, for it was extremely unlikely that, wounded 
and tired as it was, it would go any distance after 
finding that it was no longer pursued. 

When we got to the thicket we first made a circuit 
round it to see if the wounded animal had broken 
cover, but though there were fresh deer tracks lead- 
ing both in and out of it, none of them were made 
by a cripple; so we knew he was still within. It 
would seem to be a very easy task to track up and 
kill a broken-legged buck in light snow; but we 
had to go very cautiously, for though with only 
three legs he could still run a good deal faster than 
either of us on two, and we were anxious not to 
alarm him and give him a good start. Then there 
were several well-beaten cattle trails through the 
thicket, and in addition to that one or two other 
deer had been walking to and fro within it ; so that 
it was hard work to follow the tracks. After work- 
ing some little time we hit on the right trail, finding 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 117 

where the buck had turned into the thickest growth. 
While Ferris followed carefully in on the tracks, 
I stationed myself further on toward the outside, 
knowing that the buck would in all likelihood start 
up wind. In a minute or two Ferris came on the 
bed where he had passed the night, and which he 
had evidently just left; a shout informed me that 
the game was on foot, and immediately afterward 
the crackling and snapping of the branches were 
heard as the deer rushed through them. I ran as 
rapidly and quietly as possible toward the place 
where the sounds seemed to indicate that he would 
break cover, stopping under a small tree. A 
minute afterward he appeared, some thirty yards 
off on the edge of the thicket, and halted for a 
second to look round before going into the open. 
Only his head and antlers were visible above the 
bushes which hid from view the rest of his body. 
He turned his head sharply toward me as I raised 
the rifle, and the bullet went fairly into his throat, 
just under the jaw, breaking his neck, and bringing 
him down in his tracks with hardly a kick. He 
was a fine buck of eight points, unusually fat, con- 
sidering that the rutting season was just over. We 
dressed it at once, and, as the house was so near, 
determined we would drag it there over the snow 
ourselves, without going back for a horse. Each 
took an antler, and the body slipped along very 
easily; but so intense was the cold that we had to 
keep shifting sides all the time, the hand which held 
the horn becoming numb almost immediately. 



ii8 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

White-tail are very canny, and know perfectly 
well what threatens danger and what does not. 
Their larger, and to my mind nobler, relation, the 
black-tail, is if anything easier to approach and kill, 
and yet is by no means so apt to stay in the im- 
mediate neighborhood of a ranch, where there is 
always more or less noise and confusion. The bot- 
tom on which my ranch house stands is a couple 
of miles in length, and well wooded ; all through last 
summer it was the home of a number of white-tails, 
and most of them are on it to this moment. Two 
fawns in especial were really amusingly tame, at 
one time spending their days hid in an almost im- 
penetrable tangle of bullberry bushes, whose hither 
edge was barely a hundred yards from the ranch- 
house; and in the evening they could frequently be 
seen from the door, as they came out to feed. In 
walking out after sunset, or in riding home when 
night had fallen, we would often run across them 
when it was too dark to make out anything but 
their flaunting white tails as they cantered out of 
the way. Yet for all their seeming familiarity they 
took good care not to expose themselves to danger. 
We were reluctant to molest them, but one day, 
having performed our usual weekly or fortnightly 
feat of eating up about everything there was in the 
house, it was determined that the two deer (for 
it was late in autumn and they were then well 
grown) should be sacrificed. Accordingly one of 
us sallied out, but found that the sacrifice was not 
to be consummated so easily, for the should-be vie- 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 119 

tims appeared to distinguish perfectly well between 
a mere passerby, whom they regarded with abso- 
lute indifference, and any one who harbored sinister 
designs. They kept such a sharp look-out, and 
made off so rapidly if any one tried to approach 
them, that on two evenings the appointed hunter 
returned empty-handed, and by the third some one 
else had brought in a couple of black-tail. After 
that no necessity arose for molesting the two "tame 
deer," for whose sound common-sense we had all 
acquired a greatly increased respect. 

When not much molested white-tail feed in the 
evening or late afternoon; but if often shot at and 
chased they only come out at night. They are very 
partial to the water, and in the warm summer nights 
will come down into the prairie ponds and stand 
knee-deep in them, eating the succulent marsh 
plants. Most of the plains rivers flow through 
sandy or muddy beds with no vegetable growth, 
and to these, of course, the deer merely come down 
to drink or refresh themselves by bathing, as they 
contain nothing to eat. 

Throughout the day the white-tails keep in the 
densest thickets, choosing if possible those of con- 
siderable extent. For this reason they are confined 
to the bottoms of the rivers and the mouths of the 
largest creeks, the cover elsewhere being too scanty 
to suit them. It is very difficult to make them leave 
one of their haunts during the daytime. They lie 
very close, permitting a man to pass right by them ; 
and the twigs and branches surrounding them are 



I20 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

so thick and interlaced that they can hear the ap- 
proach of any one from a long distance off, and 
hence are rarely surprised. If they think there is 
danger that the intruder will discover them, they 
arise and skulk silently off through the thickest part 
of the brush. If followed, they keep well ahead, 
moving perfectly noiselessly through the thicket, 
often going round in a circle and not breaking cover 
until hard pressed; yet all the time stepping with 
such sharp-eyed caution that the pursuing hunter 
will never get a glimpse of the quarry, though the 
patch of brush may not be fifty rods across. 

At times the white-tail will lie so close that it 
may almost be trodden on. One June morning I 
was riding down along the river, and came to a 
long bottom, crowded with rose-bushes, all in bloom. 
It was crossed in every direction by cattle paths, 
and a drove of long-horned Texans were scattered 
over it. A cow-pony gets accustomed to traveling 
at speed along the cattle trails, and the one I 
bestrode threaded its way among the twisted narrow 
paths with perfect ease, loping rapidly onward 
through a sea of low rose-bushes, covered with the 
sweet, pink flowers. They gave a bright color to 
the whole plain, while the air was filled with the 
rich, full songs of the yellow-breasted meadow 
larks, as they perched on the topmost sprays of the 
little trees. Suddenly a white-tail doe sprang up 
almost from under the horse's feet, and scudded 
off with her white flag flaunting. There was no 
reason for harming her, and she made a pretty 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 121 

picture as she bounded lightly off among the rose- 
red flowers, passing without heed through the ranks 
of the long-horned and savage-looking steers. 

Doubtless she had a little spotted fawn not far 
away. These wee fellows soon after birth grow 
very cunning and able to take care of themselves, 
keeping in the densest part of the brush, through 
which they run and dodge like a rabbit. If taken 
young they grow very tame and are most dainty 
pets. One which we had round the house answered 
well to its name. It was at first fed with milk, 
which it lapped eagerly from a saucer, sharing the 
meal with the two cats, who rather resented its pres- 
ence and cuffed it heartily when they thought it was 
greedy and was taking more than its share. As it 
grew older it would eat bread or potatoes from our 
hands, and was perfectly fearless. At night it was 
let go or put in the cow-shed, whichever was hand- 
iest, but it was generally round in time for break- 
fast next morning. A blue ribbon with a bell at- 
tached was hung round its neck, so as to prevent its 
being shot; but in the end it shared the fate of all 
pets, for one night it went off and never came back 
again. Perhaps it strayed away of its own accord, 
but more probably some raw hand at hunting saw 
it, and slaughtered it without noticing the bell hang- 
ing from its neck. 

The best way to kill white-tail is to still-hunt care- 
fully through their haunts at dusk, when the deer 
leave the deep recesses in which their day-beds lie, 
and come out to feed in the more open parts. For 

F Vol. IV. 



122 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

this kind of hunting, no dress is so good as a buck- 
skin suit and moccasins. The moccasins enable one 
to tread softly and noiselessly, while the buckskin 
suit is of a most inconspicuous color, and makes less 
rustling than any other material when passing 
among projecting twigs. Care must be taken to 
always hunt up wind, and to advance without any 
sudden motions, walking close in to the edge of the 
thickets, and keeping a sharp look-out, as it is of 
the first importance to see the game before the game 
sees you. The feeding-grounds of the deer may 
vary. If they are on a bottom studded with dense 
copses, they move out on the open between them ; if 
they are in a dense wood, they feed along its edges ; 
but, by preference, they keep in the little glades and 
among the bushes underneath the trees. Wherever 
they may be found, they are rarely far from thick 
cover, and are always on the alert, lifting up their 
heads every few bites they take to see if any danger 
threatens them. But, unlike the antelope, they seem 
to rely for safety even more upon escaping observa- 
tion than upon discovering danger while it is still 
far off, and so are usually in sheltered places where 
they can not be seen at any distance. Hence, shots 
at them are generally obtained, if obtained at all, at 
very much closer range than at any other kind of 
game; the average distance would be nearer fifty 
than a hundred yards. On the other hand, more of 
the shots obtained are running ones than is the case 
with the same number taken at antelope or black-tail. 
If the deer is standing just out of a fair-sized 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 123 

wood, it can often be obtained by creeping up along 
the edge ; if seen among the large trees, it is even 
more easily still-hunted, as a tree trunk can be read- 
ily kept in line with the quarry, and thus prevent its 
suspecting any approach. But only a few white-tail 
are killed by regular and careful stalking; in much 
the greater number of instances the hunter simply 
beats patiently and noiselessly from the leeward, 
carefully through the clumps of trees and bushes, 
always prepared to see his game, and with his rifle 
at the ready. Sooner or later, as he steals round a 
corner, he either sees the motionless form of a deer, 
not a great distance off, regarding him intently for 
a moment before taking flight; or else he hears a 
sudden crash, and catches a glimpse of the animal 
as it lopes into the bushes. In either case, he must 
shoot quick; but the shot is a close one. 

If he is heard or seen a long way off, the deer is 
very apt, instead of running away at full speed, to 
skulk off quietly through the bushes. But when sud- 
denly startled, the white-tail makes off at a great 
rate, at a rolling gallop, the long, broad tail, pure 
white, held up in the air. In the dark or in thick 
woods, often all that can be seen is the flash of white 
from the tail. The head is carried low and well 
forward in running; a buck, when passing swiftly 
through thick underbrush, usually throws his horns 
back almost on his shoulders, with his nose held 
straight in front. White-tail venison is, in season, 
most delicious eating, only inferior to the mutton 
of the mountain sheep. 



124 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

Among the places which are most certain to con- 
tain white-tails may be mentioned the tracts of 
swampy ground covered with willows and the like, 
which are to be found in a few (and but a few) 
localities through the plains country; there are, for 
example, several such along the Powder River, just 
below where the Little Powder empties into it. 
Here there is a dense growth of slim-stemmed 
young trees, sometimes almost impenetrable, and in 
other places opening out into what seem like arched 
passage-ways, through which a man must at times 
go almost on all fours. The ground may be covered 
with rank shrubbery, or it may be bare mud with 
patches of tall reeds. Here and there, scattered 
through these swamps, are pools of water, and 
sluggish ditches occasionally cut their way deep be- 
low the surface of the muddy soil. Game trails are 
abundant all through them, and now and then there 
is a large path beaten out by the cattle; while at 
intervals there are glades and openings. A horse 
must be very careful in going through such a swamp 
or he will certainly get mired, and even a man must 
be cautious about his footing. In the morning or 
late afternoon a man stands a good chance of killing 
deer in such a place, if he hunts carefully through it. 
It is comparatively easy to make but little noise in 
the mud and among the wet, yielding swamp plants ; 
and by moving cautiously along the trails and 
through the openings, one can see some little dis- 
tance ahead; and toward evening the pools should 
be visited, and the borders as far back as possible 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 125 

carefully examined, for any deer that come to drink, 
and the glades should be searched through for any 
that may be feeding. In the soft mud, too, a fresh 
track can be followed as readily as if in snow, and 
without exposing the hunter to much probability of 
detection. If a shot is obtained at all, it is at such 
close quarters as to more than counterbalance the 
dimness of the light, and to render the chance of a 
miss very unlikely. Such hunting is for a change 
very pleasant, the perfect stillness of the place, the 
quiet with which one has to move, and the constant 
expectation of seeing game keeping one's nerves 
always on the stretch; but after a while it grows 
tedious, and it makes a man feel cramped to be 
always ducking and crawling through such places. 
It is not to be compared, in cool weather, with still- 
hunting on the open hills ; nevertheless, in the furi- 
ous heat of the summer sun it has its advantages, 
for it is not often so oppressingly hot in the swamp 
as it is on the open prairie or in the dry thickets. 

The white-tail is the only kind of large game for 
which the shot-gun can occasionally be used. At 
times in the dense brush it is seen, if at all, at such 
short distances, and the shots have to be taken so 
hurriedly, that the shot-gun is really the best weapon 
wherewith to attempt its death. One method of 
taking it is to have trained dogs hunt through a 
valley and drive the deer to guns stationed at the 
opposite end. With a single slow^ hound, given to 
baying, a hunter can often follow the deer on foot 
in the method adopted in most of the Eastern States 



126 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

for the capture of both the gray and the red fox. 
If the dog is slow and noisy the deer will play round 
in circles and can be cut off and shot from a stand. 

Any dog will soon put a deer out of a thicket, or 
drive it down a valley ; but without a dog it is often 
difficult to drive deer toward the runway or place 
at which the guns are stationed, for the white-tail 
will often skulk round and round a thicket instead of 
putting out of it when a man enters ; and even when 
started it may break back past the driver instead of 
going toward the guns. 

In all these habits white-tail are the very reverse 
of such game as antelope. Antelope care nothing 
at all about being seen, and indeed rather court ob- 
servation, while the chief anxiety of a white-tail is 
to go unobserved. In passing through a country 
where there are antelope, it is almost impossible not 
to see them ; while where there are an equal number 
of white-tail, the odds are manifold against travel- 
ers catching a glimpse of a single individual. The 
prong-horn is perfectly indifferent as to whether the 
pursuer sees him, so long as in his turn he is able to 
see the pursuer ; and he relies entirely upon his speed 
and wariness for his safety; he never trusts for a 
moment to eluding observation. White-tail on the 
contrary rely almost exclusively either upon lying 
perfectly still and letting the danger pass by, or else 
upon skulking off so slyly as to be unobserved ; it is 
only when hard pressed or suddenly startled that 
they bound boldly and freely away. 

In many of the dense jungles without any opening 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 127 

the brush is higher than a man's head, and one has 
then practically no chance at all of getting a shot 
on foot when crossing through such places. But I 
have known instances where a man had himself 
driven in a tall light wagon through a place like this, 
and got several snap shots at the deer, as he caught 
momentar}^ glimpses of them stealing off through 
the underbrush; and another method of pursuit in 
these jungles is occasionally followed by one of my 
foremen, who, mounted on a quiet horse, which will 
stand fire, pushes through the bushes and now and 
then gets a quick shot at a deer from horseback. I 
have tried this method myself, but without success, 
for though my hunting-horse, old Manitou, stands 
as steady as a rock, yet I find it impossible to shoot 
the rifle with any degree of accuracy from the 
saddle. 

Except on such occasions as those just mentioned, 
the white-tail is rarely killed while hunting on horse- 
back. This last term, by-the-way, must not be un- 
derstood in the sense in which it would be taken 
by the fox-hunter of the South, or by the Califor- 
nian and Texan horsemen who course hare, ante- 
lope, and wild turkey with their fleet greyhounds. 
With us hunting on horseback simply means that 
the horse is ridden not only to the hunting grounds, 
but also through them, until the game is discovered ; 
then the hunter immediately dismounts, shooting at 
once if the animal is near enough and has seen him, 
or stalking up to It on foot if it is a great distance 
off and he Is still unobserved. Where sfreat stretches 



128 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

of country have to be covered, as in antelope shoot- 
ing, hunting on horseback is almost the only way 
followed; but the haunts and habits of the white- 
tail deer render it nearly useless to try to kill them 
in this way, as the horse would be sure to alarm 
them by making a noise, and even if he did not 
there would hardly be time to dismount and take 
a snap shot. Only once have I ever killed a white- 
tail buck while hunting on horseback; and at that 
time I had been expecting to fall in with black-tail. 
This was while we had been making a wagon 
trip to the westward following the old Keogh trail, 
which was made by the heavy army wagons that 
journeyed to Fort Keogh in the old days when the 
soldiers were, except a few daring trappers, the 
only white men to be seen on the last great hunting- 
ground of the Indians. It was abandoned as a 
military route several years ago, and is now only 
rarely traveled over, either by the canvas-topped 
ranch-wagon of some wandering cattle-men — like 
ourselves, — or else by a small party of emigrants, 
in two or three prairie schooners, which contain all 
their household goods. Nevertheless, it is still as 
plain and distinct as ever. The two deep parallel 
ruts, cut into the sod by the wheels of the heavy 
wagons, stretch for scores of miles in a straight line 
across the level prairie, and take great turns and 
doublings to avoid the impassable portions of the 
Bad Lands. The track is always perfectly plain, 
for in the dry climate of the Western plains the 
action of the weather tends to preserve rather than 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 129 

to obliterate it; where it leads downhill, the snow 
water has cut and widened the ruts into deep gul- 
lies, so that a wagon has at those places to travel 
alongside the road. From any little rising in the 
prairie the road can be seen, a long way off, as a 
dark line, which, when near, resolves itself into two 
sharply defined parallel cuts. Such a road is a great 
convenience as a landmark. When traveling along 
it, or one like it, the hunters can separate in all 
directions, and no matter how long or how far they 
hunt, there is never the least difficulty about finding 
camp. For the general direction in which the road 
lies, is, of course, kept in mind, and it can be reached 
whether the sun is down or not; then a glance tells 
if the wagon has passed, and all that remains to be 
idone is to gallop along the trail until camp is found. 
On the trip in question we had at first very bad 
weather. Leaving the ranch in the morning, two 
of us, who were mounted, pushed on ahead to hunt, 
the wagon following slowly, with a couple of spare 
saddle ponies leading behind it. Early in the after- 
noon, while riding over the crest of a great divide, 
which separates the drainage basins of two impor- 
tant creeks, we saw that a tremendous storm was 
brewing with that marvelous rapidity which is so 
marked a characteristic of weather changes on the 
plains. A towering mass of clouds gathered in the 
northwest, turning that whole quarter of the sky 
to an inky blackness. From there the storm rolled 
down toward us at a furious speed, obscuring by 
degrees the light of the sun, and extending its wings 



130 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

toward each side, as if to overlap any that tried to 
avoid its path. Against the dark background of 
the mass could be seen pillars and clouds of gray 
mist, whirled hither and thither by the wind, and 
sheets of level rain driven before it. The edges 
of the wings tossed to and fro, and the wind 
shrieked and moaned as it swept over the prairie. 
It was a storm of unusual intensity ; the prairie fowl 
rose in flocks from before it, scudding with spread 
wings toward the thickest cover, and the herds of 
antelope ran across the plain like race-horses to 
gather in the hollows and behind the low ridges. 

We spurred hard to get out of the open, riding 
wdth loose reins for the creek. The centre of the 
storm swept by behind us, fairly across our track, 
and we only got a wipe from the tail of it. Yet 
this itself we could not have faced in the open. 
The first gust caught us a few hundred yards from 
the creek, almost taking us from the saddle, and 
driving the rain and hail in stinging level sheets 
against us. We galloped to the edge of a deep 
wash-out, scrambled into it at the risk of our necks, 
and huddled up with our horses underneath the 
windward bank. Here we remained pretty well 
sheltered until the storm was over. Although it 
was August, the air became very cold. The wagon 
was fairly caught, and would have been blown over 
if the top had been on ; the driver and horses escaped 
without injury, pressing under the leeward side, 
the storm coming so level that they did not need 
a roof to protect them from the hail. Where the 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 131 

centre of the whirlwind struck it did great damage, 
sheets of hailstones as large as pigeons' eggs strik- 
ing the earth with the velocity of bullets; next day 
the hailstones could have been gathered up by the 
bushel from the heaps that lay in the bottom of the 
gullies and ravines. One of my cowboys was out 
in the storm, during whose continuance he crouched 
under his horse's belly; coming home he came across 
some antelope so numb and stiffened that they could 
barely limp out of the way. 

Near my ranch the hail killed quite a number 
of lambs. These were the miserable remnants of 
a flock of twelve thousand sheep driven into the 
Bad Lands a year before, four-fifths of whom had 
died during the first winter, to the delight of all 
the neighboring cattle-men. Cattle-men hate sheep, 
because they eat the grass so close that cattle can 
not live on the same ground. The sheep-herders 
are a morose, melancholy set of men, generally 
afoot, and with no companionship except that of the 
bleating idiots they are hired to guard. No man 
can associate with sheep and retain his self-respect. 
Intellectually a sheep is about on the lowest level 
of the brute creation; why the early Christians ad- 
mired it, whether young or old, is to a good cattle- 
man always a profound mystery. 

The wagon came on to the creek, along whose 
banks we had taken shelter, and we then went into 
camp. It rained all night, and there was a thick 
mist, with continual sharp showers, all the next 
day and night. The wheeling was, in consequence. 



132 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

very heavy, and after striking the Keogh trail, we 
were able to go along it but a few miles before the 
fagged-out look of the team and the approach of 
evening warned us that we should have to go into 
camp while still a dozen miles from any pool or 
spring. Accordingly we made what would have 
been a dry camp had it not been for the incessant 
downpour of rain, which w^e gathered in the canvas 
wagon-sheet and in our oilskin overcoats in suffi- 
cient quantity to make coffee, having with infinite 
difficulty started a smouldering fire just to leeward 
of the wagon. The horses, feeding on the soaked 
grass, did not need water. An antelope, with the 
bold and heedless curiosity sometimes shown by its 
tribe, came up within two hundred yards of us as 
wx were building the fire ; but though one of us took 
a shot at him, it missed. Our shaps and oilskins 
had kept us perfectly dry, and as soon as our frugal 
supper was over, we coiled up among the boxes 
and bundles inside the wagon and slept soundly 
till daybreak. 

When the sun rose next day, the third we were 
out, the sky was clear, and we two horsemen at 
once prepared to make a hunt. Some three 
miles off to the south of where we were camped, 
the plateau on which w^e were sloped off 
into a great expanse of broken ground, with 
chains upon chains of steep hills, separated by deep 
valleys, winding and branching in every direction, 
their bottoms filled with trees and brushwood. 
Toward this place we rode, intending to go into it 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 133 

some little distance, and then to hunt along through 
it near the edge. As soon as we got down near the 
brushy ravine we rode along without talking, guid- 
ing the horses as far as possible on earthy places, 
where they would neither stumble nor strike their 
feet against stones, and not letting our rifle-barrels 
or spurs clink against anything. Keeping outside 
of the brush, a little up the side of the hill, one of 
us w^ould ride along each side of the ravine, ex- 
amining intently with our eyes every clump of trees 
or brushwood. For some time we saw nothing, 
but, finally, as we were riding both together round 
the jutting spur of a steep hill, my companion sud- 
denly brought his horse to a halt, and pointing 
across the shelving bend to a patch of trees well 
up on the opposite side of a broad ravine, asked 
me if I did not see a deer in it. I was off the 
horse in a second, throwing the reins over his 
head. 

We were in the shadow of the cliff-shoulder, and 
with the wind in our favor; so we were unlikely 
to be observed by the game. I looked long and 
eagerly toward the spot indicated, which was about 
a hundred and twenty-five yards from us, but at 
first could see nothing. By this time, however, 
the experienced plainsman who was with me was 
satisfied that he was right in his supposition, and 
he told me to try again and look for a patch of 
red. I saw the patch at once, just glimmering 
through the bushes, but should certainly never have 
dreamed it was a deer if left to myself. Watching 



134 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

it attentively I soon saw it move enough to satisfy 
me where the head lay; kneeling on one knee and 
(as it was a little beyond point-blank range) hold- 
ing at the top of the portion visible, I pulled trig- 
ger, and the bright-colored patch disappeared from 
among the bushes. The aim was a good one, for, 
on riding up to the brink of the ravine, we saw 
a fine white-tail buck lying below us, shot through 
just behind the shoulder; he was still in the red 
coat, with his antlers in the velvet. 

A deer is far from being such an easy animal to 
see as the novice is apt to suppose. Until the middle 
of September he is in the red coat ; after that time he 
is in the gray; but it is curious how each one har- 
monizes in tint with certain of the surroundings. 
A red doe lying down is, at a little distance, undis- 
tinguishable from the soil on which she is; while a 
buck in the gray can hardly be made out in dead 
timber. While feeding quietly or standing still, 
they rarely show the proud, free port we are accus- 
tomed to associate with the idea of a buck, and look 
rather ordinary, humble-seeming animals, not at all 
conspicuous or likely to attract the hunter's atten- 
tion; but once let them be frightened, and as they 
stand facing the danger, or bound away from it, 
their graceful movements and lordly bearing leave 
nothing to be desired. The black-tail is a still 
nobler-looking animal; while an antelope, on the 
contrary, though as light and quick on its feet as is 
possible for any animal not possessing wings to be, 
yet has an angular, goat-like look, and by no means 



The Deer of the River Bottoms 135 

conveys to the beholder the same idea of grace that 
a deer does. 

In coming home, on this wagon trip, we made a 
long moonhght ride, passing over between sunset 
and sunrise what had taken us three days' journey 
on the outward march. Of our riding horses, two 
were still in good condition and well able to stand a 
twenty-four hours' jaunt, in spite of hard work and 
rough usage; the spare ones, as well as the team, 
were pretty well done up and could get along but 
slowly. All day long we had been riding beside the 
wagon over barren sage brush plains, following the 
dusty trails made by the beef-herds that had been 
driven toward one of the Montana shipping towns. 

When we halted for the evening meal we came 
near learning by practical experience how easy it is 
to start a prairie fire. We were camped by a dry 
creek on a broad bottom covered with thick, short 
grass, as dry as so much tinder. We wished to burn 
a good circle clear for the camp fire ; lighting it, we 
stood round with branches to keep it under. While 
thus standing a puff of wind struck us; the fire 
roared like a wild beast as it darted up ; and our hair 
and eyelashes were well singed before we had beaten 
it out. At one time it seemed as if, though but a 
very few feet in extent, it would actually get away 
from us ; in which case the whole bottom would have 
been a blazing furnace within five minutes. 

After supper, looking at the worn-out condition 
of the team, we realized that it would take three 
more days' traveling at the rate we had been going 



136 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

to bring us in, and as the country was monotonous, 
without much game, we ' deluded we would leave 
the wagon with the dri\ ., and taking advantage of 
the full moon, push through the whole distance be- 
fore breakfast next morning. Accordingly, we at 
nine o'clock again saddled the tough little ponies we 
had ridden all day and loped off out of the circle 
at firelight. For nine hours we rode steadily, gen- 
erally at a quick lope, across the moonlit prairie. 
The hoof-beats of our horses rang out in steady 
rhythm through the silence of the night, otherwise 
unbroken save now and then by the wailing cry of a 
coyote. The rolling plains stretched out on all sides 
of us, shimmering in the clear moonlight; and oc- 
casionally a band of spectral-looking antelope swept 
silently away from before our path. Once we went 
by a drove of Texan cattle, who stared wildly at the 
intruders; as we passed they charged down by us, 
the ground rumbling beneath their tread, while their 
long horns knocked against each other with a sound 
like the clattering of a multitude of castanets. We 
could see clearly enough to keep our general course 
over the trackless plain, steering by the stars where 
the prairie was perfectly level and without land- 
marks ; and our ride was timed well, for as we gal- 
loped down into the valley of the Little Missouri 
the sky above the line of level bluffs in our front was 
crimson with the glow of the unrisen sun. 



CHAPTER V 

THE BLACK-TAIL DEER 

FAR different from the low-scudding, brush-lov- 
ing white-tail, is the black-tail deer, the deer of 
the ravines and the rocky uplands. In general shape 
and form, both are much alike ; but the black-tail is 
the larger of the two, with heavier antlers, of which 
the prongs start from one another, as if each of the 
tines of a two-pronged pitchfork had bifurcated; 
in some cases it looks as if the process had been again 
repeated. The tail, instead of being broad and 
bushy as a squirrel's, spreading from the base, and 
pure white to the tip, is round and close haired, with 
the end black, though the rest is white. If an ordi- 
nary deer is running, its flaunting flag is almost its 
most conspicuous part ; but no one would notice the 
tail of a black-tail deer. 

All deer vary greatly in size; and a small black- 
tail buck will be surpassed in bulk by many white- 
tails; but the latter never reaches the weight and 
height sometimes attained by the former. The same 
holds true of the antlers borne by the two animals ; 
on the average those of the black-tail are the heavier, 
and exceptionally large antlers of this species are 
larger than any of the white-tail. Bucks of both 

(137) 



138 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

kinds very often have, when full-grown, more than 
the normal number of ten points; sometimes these 
many-pronged antlers will be meirely deformities, 
while in other instances the points are more sym- 
metrical, and add greatly to the beauty and grandeur 
of the head. The venison of the black-tail is said 
to be inferior in quality to that of the white-tail; 
but I have never been able to detect much difference, 
though, perhaps, on the whole, the latter is slightly 
better. 

The gaits of the two animals are widely different. 
The white-tail runs at a rolling gallop, striking the 
ground with the forward feet first, the head held 
forward. The black-tail, on the contrary, holds its 
head higher up, and progresses by a series of pro- 
digious bounds, striking the earth with all four feet 
at once, the legs held nearly stiff. It seems like an 
extraordinary method of running; and the violent 
exertion tires the deer sooner than does the more 
easy and natural gait of the white-tail; but for a 
mile or so these rapidly succeeding bounds enable 
the black-tail to get over the ground at remarkable 
speed. Over rough ground, along precipitous slopes, 
and among the bowlders of rocky cliffs, it will go 
with surprising rapidity and surefootedness, only 
surpassed by the feats of the big-horn in similar lo- 
calities, and not equaled by those of any other plains 
game. 

One of the noticeable things In Western plains 
hunting is the different zones or bands of territory 
inhabited by different kinds of game. Along the al- 



The Black-Tail Deer 139 

luvial land of the rivers and large creeks is found the 
white-tail. Back of these alluvial lands generally 
comes a broad tract of broken, hilly country, scantily 
clad with brush in some places ; this is the abode of 
the black-tail deer. And where these hills rise high- 
est, and where the ground is most rugged and bar- 
ren, there the big-horn is found. After this hilly 
country is passed, in traveling away from the river, 
we come to the broad, level plains, the domain of 
the antelope. Of course the habitats of the different 
species overlap at the edges ; and this overlapping is 
most extended in the cases of the big-horn and the 
black- tail. 

The Bad Lands are the favorite haunts of the 
black-tail. Here the hills are steep and rugged, cut 
up and crossed in every direction by canyon-like 
ravines and valleys, which branch out and subdivide 
in the most intricate and perplexing manner. Here 
and there are small springs, or pools, marked by 
the greener vegetation growing round them. Along 
the bottoms and sides of the ravines there are 
patches of scrubby undergrowth, and in many of the 
pockets or glens in the sides of the hills the trees 
grow to some little height. High buttes rise here 
and there, naked to the top, or else covered with 
stunted pines and cedars, which also grow in the 
deep ravines and on the edges of the sheer canyons. 
Such lands, where the ground is roughest, and 
where there is some cover, even though scattered 
and scanty, are the best places to find the black-tail. 
Naturally their pursuit needs very different quali- 



140 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

ties in the hunter from those required in the chase of 
the white-tail. In the latter case stealth and caution 
are the prime requisites ; while the man who would 
hunt and kill the deer of the uplands has more espe- 
cial need of energy, activity, and endurance, of good 
judgment and of skill with the rifle. Hunting the 
black-tail is beyond all comparison the nobler sport. 
Indeed, there is no kind of plains hunting, except 
only the chase of the big-horn, more fitted to bring 
out the best and hardiest of the many qualities which 
go to make up a good hunter. 

It is still a moot question whether it is better 
to hunt on horseback or on foot; but the course of 
events is rapidly deciding it in favor of the latter 
method. Undoubtedly it is easier and pleasanter 
to hunt on horseback; and it has the advantage of 
covering a great deal of ground. But it is impos- 
sible to advance with such caution, and it is difficult 
to shoot as quickly, as when on foot; and where 
the deer are shy and not very plenty, the most en- 
thusiastic must, slowly and reluctantly but surely, 
come to the conclusion that a large bag can only 
be made by the still-hunter who goes on foot. Of 
course, in the plains country it is not as in mountain- 
ous or thickly wooded regions, and the horse should 
almost always be taken as a means of conveyance 
to the hunting-grounds and from one point to an- 
other; but the places where game is expected should, 
as a rule, be hunted over on foot. This rule is by 
no means a general one, however. There are still 
many localities where the advantage of covering a 



The Black-Tail Deer 141 

great deal of ground more than counterbalances 
the disadvantage of being on horseback. About 
one-third of my hunts are still made on horseback; 
and in almost all the others I take old Manitou to 
carry me to and from the grounds and to pack out 
any game that may be killed. A hunting-horse is 
of no use whatever unless he v^ill permit a man 
to jump from his back and fire with the greatest 
rapidity; and nowhere does practice have more to 
do with success than in the case of jumping off 
a horse to shoot at game which has just been seen. 
The various movements take a novice a good deal 
of time; while an old hand will be off and firing 
with the most instantaneous quickness. Manitou 
can be left anywhere at a moment's warning, while 
his rider leaps off, shoots at a deer from almost 
under his head, and perhaps chases the wounded 
animal a mile or over; and on his return the good 
old fellow will be grazing away, perfectly happy 
and contented, and not making a movement to run 
off or evade being caught. 

One method of killing deer on horseback is very 
exciting. Many of the valleys or ravines extend 
with continual abrupt turns and windings for sev- 
eral miles, the brush and young trees stretching 
with constant breaks down the middle of the bot- 
tom, and leaving a space on each side along which 
a surefooted horse can gallop at speed. Two men, 
on swift, hardy horses, can hunt down such a ravine 
very successfully at evening, by each taking a side 
and galloping at a good speed the whole length 



142 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

against the wind. The patter of the unshod hoofs 
over the turf makes but httle noise; and the turns 
are so numerous and abrupt, and the horses go so 
swiftly, that the hunters come on the deer almost 
before the latter are aware of their presence. If 
it is so late in the day that the deer have begun 
to move they will find the horses close up before 
they have a suspicion of danger, while if they are 
still lying in the cover the suddenness of the ap- 
ipearance of their foe is apt to so startle them as 
to make them break out and show themselves in- 
stead of keeping hid, as they would probably do if 
they perceived the approach from afar. One thus 
gets a close running shot or if he waits a minute 
he will generally get a standing shot at some little 
distance, owing to a very characteristic habit of 
the black-tail. This is its custom of turning round, 
apparently actuated simply by curiosity, to look at 
the object which startled it, after it has run off a 
hundred and fifty yards or so. It then stands mo- 
tionless for a few seconds, and offers a chance for 
a steady shot. If the chance is not improved, no 
other will offer, for as soon as the deer has ended 
its scrutiny it is off again, and this time will not 
halt till well out of danger. Owing to its singular 
gait, a succession of buck jumps, the black-tail is a 
peculiarly difficult animal to hit while on the run; 
and it is best to wait until it stops and turns before 
taking the shot, as if fired at the report will gen- 
erally so alarm it as to make it continue its course 
without halting to look back. Some of the finest 



The Black-Tail Deer 143 

antlers in my possession come from bucks killed by 
this method of hunting; and it is a most exhilarat- 
ing form of sport, the horse galloping rapidly over 
what is often very broken ground, and the senses 
being continually on the alert for any sign of game. 
The rush and motion of the horse, and the care 
necessary to guide it and at the same time be in 
constant readiness for a shot, prevent the chase 
having any of the monotony that is at times insep- 
arable from still-hunting proper. 

Nevertheless, it is by still-hunting that most deer 
are killed, and the highest form of hunting craft 
is shown in the science of the skilful still-hunter. 
With sufficient practice any man who possesses 
common-sense and is both hardy and persevering 
can become, to a certain extent, a still-hunter. But 
the really good still-hunter is born rather than 
made; though of course in addition to possessing 
the gifts naturally he must also have developed 
them, by constant practice, to the highest point 
possible. One of the foremen on my ranch is a 
really remarkably good hunter and game shot, and 
another does almost as well; but the rest of us are 
not, and never will be, anything very much out 
of the common. By dint of practice we have learned 
to shoot as well at game as at a target; and those 
of us who are fond of the sport hunt continually 
and so get a good deal of game at one time or an- 
other. Hunting through good localities, up wind, 
quietly and perseveringly, we come upon quite a 
number of animals ; and we can kill a standing shot 



144 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

at a fair distance and a running shot close up, and 
by good luck every now and then kill far off; but 
to much more than is implied in the description of 
such modest feats we can not pretend. 

After the disappearance of the buffalo and the 
thinning out of the elk, the black-tail was, and in 
most places it still is, the game most sought after 
by the hunters ; I have myself shot as many of them 
as of all other kinds of plains game put together. 
But for this very reason it is fast disappearing; and 
bids fair to be the next animal, after the buffalo 
and elk, to vanish from the places that formerly 
knew it. The big-horn and the prong-horn are more 
difficult to stalk and kill, partly from their greater 
natural wariness, and partly from the kind of 
ground on which they are found. But it seems at 
first sight strange that the black-tail should be ex- 
terminated or driven away so much more quickly 
than the white-tail, when it has sharper ears and 
nose, is more tenacious of life, and is more wary. 
The main reason is to be found in the difference in 
the character of the haunts of the two creatures. 
The black-tail is found on much more open ground, 
where the animals can be seen further off, where 
it is much easier to take advantage of the direction 
of the wind and to get along without noise, and 
where far more country can be traversed in a given 
time; and though the average length of the shots 
taken is in one case two or three times as great as 
in the other, yet this is more than counterbalanced 
by the fact that they are more often standing ones. 



The Black-Tail Deer 145 

and that there is usually much more time for aim- 
ing. Moreover, one kind of sport can be followed 
on horseback, while the other must be followed on 
foot; and then the chase of the w^hite-tail, in addi- 
tion, is by far the more tedious and patience-trying. 
And the black-tail are much the more easily scared 
or driven out of a locality by persecution or by 
the encroaching settlements. All these qualities 
combine to make it less able to hold its own against 
mankind than its smaller rival. It is the favorite 
game of the skin hunters and meat hunters, and 
has, in consequence, already disappeared from many 
places, while in others its extermination is going on 
at a frightfully rapid rate, owing to its being fol- 
lowed in season and out of season without mercy. 
Besides, the cattle are very fond of just the places 
to which it most often resorts; and wherever cattle 
go the cowboys ride about after them, wnth their 
ready six-shooters at their hips. They blaze away 
at any deer they see, of course, and in addition to 
now and then killing or wounding one, continually 
harry and disturb the poor animals. In the more 
remote and inaccessible districts the black-tail wall 
long hold its own, to be one of the animals whose 
successful pursuit will redound most to the glory 
of the still-hunter; but in a very few years it will 
have ceased entirely to be one of the common game 
animals of the plains. 

Its great curiosity is one of the disadvantages 
under which it labors in the fierce struggle for exist- 
ence, compared to the white-tail. The latter, when 

G Vol. IV. 



146 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

startled, does not often stop to look round; but, as 
already said, the former will generally do so after 
having gone a few hundred feet. The first black- 
tail I ever killed — unfortunately killed, for the body 
was not found until spoiled — was obtained owing 
solely to this peculiarity. I had been riding up 
along the side of a brushy coulie, when a fine buck 
started out some thirty yards ahead. Although so 
close, my first shot, a running one, was a miss; 
when a CQUple of hundred yards off, on the very 
crest of the spur up which he had run, he stopped 
and turned partially round. Firing again from a 
rest, the bullet broke his hind leg far up and went 
into his body. Off he went on three legs, and I after 
him as fast as the horse could gallop. He went over 
the spur and down into the valley of the creek 
from which the coulie branched up, in very bad 
ground. 

My pony was neither fast nor surefooted, but of 
course in half a mile overhauled the three-legged 
deer, which turned short off and over the side of the 
hill flanking the valley. Instead of running right up 
on it I foolishly dismounted and began firing; after 
the first shot — a miss — it got behind a bowlder hith- 
erto unseen, and thence over the crest. The pony 
meanwhile had slipped its hind leg into the rein; 
when, after some time, I got it out and galloped up 
to the ridge, the most careful scrutiny of which my 
unpracticed eyes were capable failed to discover a 
track on the dry ground, hard as granite. A day 
or two afterward the place where the carcass lay 



The Black-Tail Deer 147 

was made known by the vultures, gathered together 
from all parts to feed upon it. 

When fired at from a place of hiding, deer which 
have not been accustomed to the report of a gun will 
often appear confused and uncertain w^hat to do. 
On one occasion, while hunting in the mountains, 
I saw an old buck with remarkably large horns, of 
curious and beautiful shape, more symmetrical than 
in most instances where the normal form is departed 
from. The deer was feeding in a wide, gently slop- 
ing valley, containing no cover from behind which 
to approach him. We were in no need of meat, 
but the antlers were so fine that I felt they justified 
the death of their bearer. After a little patient wait- 
ing, the buck walked out of the valley, and over the 
ridge on the other side, moving up wind; I raced 
after him, and crept up behind a thick growth of 
stunted cedars, which had started up from among 
some bowlders. The deer was about a hundred 
yards off, down in the valley. Out of breath, and 
over-confident, I fired hastily, overshooting him. 
The wind blew the smoke back away from the ridge, 
so that he saw nothing, while the echo prevented his 
placing the sound. He took a couple of jumps 
nearer, when he stood still and was again overshot. 
Again he took a few jumps, and the third shot w^ent 
below him; and the fourth just behind him. This 
was too much, and away he went. In despair I knelt 
down (I had been firing offhand), took a steady aim 
well forward on his body, and fired, bringing him 
down, but with small credit to the shot, for the bul- 



148 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

let had gone into his hip, paralyzing his hind-quar- 
ters. The antlers are the finest pair I ever got, and 
form a magnificent ornament for the hall; but the 
shooting is hardly to be recalled with pleasure. Still, 
though certainly very bad, it was not quite as dis- 
creditable as the mere target shot would think. I 
have seen many a crack marksman at the target do 
quite as bad missing when out in the field, and that 
not once, but again and again. 

Of course, in those parts of the wilderness where 
the black-tail are entirely unused to man, they are as 
easy to approach (from the leeward side) as is any 
and every other kind of game under like conditions. 
In lonely spots, to which hunters rarely or never 
penetrate, deer of this species will stand and look at a 
hunter without offering to run away till he is within 
fifty yards of them, if he will advance quietly. In 
a far-off mountain forest I have more than once 
shot a young buck at less than that distance as he 
stood motionless, gazing at me, although but little 
caution had been used in approaching him. 

But a short experience of danger on the part of 
the black-tail changes all this; and where hunters 
are often afoot, he becomes as w^ild and wary as may 
be. Then the successful still-hunter shows that he 
is indeed well up In the higher forms of hunting 
craft. For the man who can, not once by accident, 
but again and again, as a regular thing, single- 
handed, find and kill his black-tail, has shown that 
he is no mere novice in his art; still-hunting the 
black-tail is a sport that only the skilful can follow 



The Black-Tail Deer 149 

with good results, and one which implies in the suc- 
cessful sportsman the presence of most of the still- 
hunter's rarest attributes. All of the qualities which 
a still-hunter should possess are of service in the 
pursuit of any kind of game; but different ones 
will be called into especial play in hunting different 
kinds of animals. Thus, to be a successful hunter 
after anything, a man should be patient, resolute, 
hardy, and with good judgment; he should have 
good lungs and stout muscles; he should be able to 
move with noiseless stealth ; and he should be keen- 
eyed, and a first-rate marksman with the rifle. But 
in different kinds of shooting, the relative impor- 
tance of these qualities varies greatly. In hunting 
white-tail deer, the two prime requisites are stealth 
and patience. If the quarry is a big-horn, a man 
needs especially to be sound in wind and limbs, and 
to be both hardy and resolute. Skill in the use of 
the long-range rifle counts for more in antelope hunt- 
ing than in any other form of sport; and it is in 
this kind of hunting alone that good marksmanship 
is more important than anything else. With dan- 
gerous game, cool and steady nerves are of the first 
consequence; all else comes after. Then, again, in 
the use of the rifle the kind of skill — not merely the 
degree of skill — required to hunt different animals 
may vary greatly. In shooting white-tail, it is espe- 
cially necessary to be a good snap shot at running 
game; when the distance is close, quickness is an 
essential. But at antelope there is plenty of time, 
and what is necessary is ability to judge distance, 



150 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

and capacity to hit a small stationary object at long 
range. 

The different degrees of estimation in which the 
chase of the various kinds of plains game is held 
depend less upon the difficulty of capture than upon 
the nature of the qualities in the hunter which each 
particular form of hunting calls into play. A man 
who is hardy, resolute, and a good shot, has come 
nearer to realizing the ideal of a bold and free 
hunter than is the case with one who is merely 
stealthy and patient ; and so, though to kill a white- 
tail is rather more difficult than to kill a black-tail, 
yet the chase of the latter is certainly the nobler 
form of sport, for it calls into play, and either de- 
velops or implies the presence of, much more manly 
qualities than does the other. Most hunters would 
find it nearly as difficult to watch in silence by a 
salt-lick throughout the night, and then to butcher 
with a shotgun a white-tail, as it would be to walk 
on foot through rough ground from morning till 
evening, and to fairly approach and kill a black-tail ; 
yet there is no comparison between the degree of 
credit to be attached to one feat and that to be at- 
tached to the other. Indeed, if difficulty in killing 
is to be taken as a criterion, a mink or even a weasel 
would have to stand as high up in the scale as a deer, 
were the animals equally plentiful. 

Ranged in the order of the difficulty with which 
they are approached and slain, plains game stand 
as follows: big-horn, antelope, white-tail, black-tail, 
elk, and buffalo. But, as regards the amount of 



The Black-Tail Deer 151 

manly sport furnished by the chase of each, the 
white-tail should stand at the bottom of the list, and 
the elk and black-tail abreast of the antelope. 

Other things being equal, the length of an ani- 
mal's stay in the land, when the arch foe of all lower 
forms of animal life has made his appearance there- 
in, depends upon the difficulty with which he is 
hunted and slain. But other influences have to be 
taken into account. The big-horn is shy and retir- 
ing; very few, compared to the whole number, will 
be killed ; and yet the others vanish completely. Ap- 
parently they will not remain where they are hunted 
and disturbed. With antelope and white-tail this 
does not hold; they will cling to a place far more 
tenaciously, even if often harassed. The former 
being the more conspicuous, and living in such open 
ground, is apt to be more persecuted; while the 
white-tail, longer than any other animal, keeps its 
place in the land in spite of the swinish game butch- 
ers, who hunt for hides and not for sport or actual 
food, and who murder the gravid doe and the spot- 
ted fawn with as little hesitation as they would kill 
a buck of ten points. No one who is not himself a 
sportsman and lover of nature can realize the in- 
tense indignation with which a true hunter sees 
these butchers at their brutal work of slaughtering 
the game, in season and out, for the sake of the few 
dollars they are too lazy to earn in any other and 
more honest way. 

All game animals rely upon eyes, ears, and nose 
to warn them of the approach of danger; but 



152 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

the amount of reliance placed on each sense varies 
greatly in different species. Those found out on the 
plains pay very little attention to what they hear; 
indeed, in the open they can hardly be approached 
near enough to make of much account any ordinary 
amount of noise caused by the stalker, especially as 
the latter is walking over little but grass and soft 
earth. The buffalo, whose shaggy frontlet of hair 
falls over his eyes and prevents his seeing at any 
great distance, depends mainly upon his exquisite 
sense of smell. The antelope, on the other hand, 
depends almost entirely on his great, bulging eyes, 
and very little on his nose. His sight is many times 
as good as that of deer, both species of which, as 
well as elk, rely both upon sight and hearing, but 
most of all upon their sense of smell, for their 
safety. The big-horn has almost as keen eyesight 
as an antelope, while his ears and nose are as sensi- 
tive to sound and scent as are those of an elk. 

Black-tail, like other members of the deer family, 
do not pay much attention to an object which is not 
moving. A hunter who is standing motionless or 
squatting down is not likely to receive attention, 
while a big-horn or prong-horn would probably see 
him and take the alarm at once ; and if the black-tail 
is frightened and running he will run almost over a 
man standing in plain sight, without paying any 
heed to him, if the latter does not move. But the 
very slightest movement at once attracts a deer's 
attention, and deer are not subject to the panics that 
at times overtake other kinds of game. The black- 



The Black-Tail Deer 153 

tail has much curiosity, which often proves fatal to 
it; but which with it is after all b}^ no means the 
ungovernable passion that it is with antelope. The 
white-tail and the big-horn are neither over-afflicted 
with morbid curiosity, nor subject to panics or fits 
of stupidity; and both these animals, as well as the 
black-tail, seem to care very little for the death of 
the leader of the band, going their own ways with 
small regard for the fate of the chief, while elk will 
huddle together in a confused group, and remain 
almost motionless when their leader is struck down. 
Antelope and more especially elk are subject to per- 
fect panics of unreasoning terror, during which 
they will often put themselves completely in the 
power of the hunter; while buffalo will frequently 
show a downright stupidity almost unequaled. 

The black-tail suffers from no such peculiarities. 
His eyes are good ; his nose and ears excellent. He 
is ever alert and wary; his only failing is his occa- 
sional over-curiosity; and his pursuit taxes to the 
utmost the skill and resources of the still-hunter. 

By all means the best coverings for the feet when 
still-hunting are moccasins, as with them a man 
can go noiselessly through ground where hobnailed 
boots would clatter like the hoofs of a horse; but 
in hunting in winter over the icy buttes and cliffs 
it is best to have stout shoes, with nails in the soles, 
and if the main work is done on horseback it is 
best to wear high boots, as they keep the trousers 
down. Indeed in the Bad Lands boots have other 
advantages, for rattlesnakes abound, and against 



154 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

these they afford perfect protection — unless a man 
should happen to stumble on a snake while crawling 
along on all fours. But moccasins are beyond all 
comparison the best footgear for hunting. In very 
cold weather a fur cap which can be pulled down 
over the ears is a necessity; but at other times a 
brimmed felt hat offers better protection against 
both sun and rain. The clothes should be of some 
neutral tint — buckskin is on this account excellent 
— and very strong. 

The still-hunter should be well acquainted with, 
at any rate, certain of the habits of his quarry. 
There are seasons when the black-tail is found in 
bands; such is apt to be the case when the rutting 
time is over. At this period, too, the deer wander 
far and wide, making what may almost be called a 
migration ; and in rutting time the bucks follow the 
does at speed for miles at a stretch. But except 
at these seasons each individual black-tail has a 
certain limited tract of country to which he confines 
himself unless disturbed or driven away, not, of 
course, keeping in the same spot all the time, but 
working round among a particular set of ravines 
and coulies, where the feed is good, and where 
water can be obtained without going too far out 
of the immediate neighborhood. 

Throughout the plains country the black-tail 
lives in the broken ground, seldom comiing down 
to the alluvial bottoms or out on the open prairies 
and plateaus. But he is found all through this 
broken ground. Sometimes it is rolling in char- 



The Black-Tail Deer 155 

acter with rounded hills and gentle valleys, dotted 
here and there with groves of trees; or the hills 
may .rise into high chains, covered with an open pine 
forest, sending off long spurs and divided by deep 
valleys and basins. Such places are favorite resorts 
of this deer; but it is as plentiful in the Bad Lands 
proper. There are tracts of these which are in part 
or wholly of volcanic origin; then the hills are 
called scoria buttes. They are high and very steep, 
but with rounded tops and edges, and are covered, 
as is the ground round about, with scoriae bowlders. 
Bushes, and sometimes a few cedar, grow among 
them, and though they would seem to be most 
unlikely places for deer, yet black-tail are very fond 
of them, and are very apt to be found among them. 
Often in the cold fall mornings they will lie out 
among the bowlders, on the steep side of such a 
scoria butte, sunning themselves, far from any 
cover except a growth of brushwood in the bottom 
of the dry creeks or coulies. The grass on top 
of and between these scoria buttes is often very 
nutritious, and cattle are also fond of it. The 
higher buttes are choice haunts of the mountain 
sheep. 

Nineteen-twentieths of the Bad Lands, however, 
owe their origin not to volcanic action but to ero- 
sion and to the peculiar weathering forces always 
at work in the dry climate of the plains. Geo- 
logically the land is for the most part composed 
of a set of parallel, perfectly horizontal strata, of 
clay, marl, or sandstone, which, being of different 



156 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

degrees of hardness, offer some more and some less 
resistance to the action of the weather. The table- 
lands, peaks, cliffs, and jagged ridges are caused 
solely by the rains and torrents cutting away the 
land into channels, which at first are merely wash- 
outs, and at last grow into deep canyons, winding 
valleys, and narrow ravines or basins. The sides 
of these cuts are at first perpendicular, exposing to 
view the various bands of soil, perhaps of a dozen 
different colors; the hardest bands resist the action 
of the weather best and form narrow ledges stretch- 
ing along the face of the cliff. Peaks of the most 
fantastic shape are formed in this manner; and 
where a ridge is worn away on each side its crest 
may be as sharp as a knife blade, but all notched 
and jagged. The peaks and ridges vary in height 
from a few feet to several hundred; the sides of 
the buttes are generally worn down in places so 
as to be steeply sloping instead of perpendicular. 
The long wash-outs and the canyons and canyon- 
like valleys stretch and branch out in every direc- 
tion; the dryness of the atmosphere, the extremes 
of intense heat and bitter cold, and the occasional 
furious rain-storms keep the edges and angles sharp 
and jagged, and pile up bowlders and masses of 
loose detritus at the foot of the cliffs and great 
lonely crags. Sometimes the valleys are quite broad, 
with steep sides and with numerous pockets, sep- 
arated by spurs jutting out into the bottom from 
the lateral ridges. Other ravines or clefts taper 
down to a ditch, a foot or so wide, from which the 



The Black-Tail Deer 157 

banks rise at an angle of sixty degrees to the tops 
of the inclosing ridges. 

The faces of the terraced cliffs and sheer crags 
are bare of all but the scantiest vegetation, and 
where the Bad Lands are most rugged and broken 
the big-horn is the only game found. But in most 
places the tops of the buttes, the sides of the slopes, 
and the bottoms of the valleys are more or less 
thickly covered with the nutritious grass which is 
the favorite food of the black-tail. 

Of course, the Bad Lands grade all the way from 
those that are almost rolling in character to those 
that are so fantastically broken in form and so 
bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong 
to this earth. If the weathering forces have not 
been very active, the ground will look, from a little 
distance, almost like a level plain, but on approach- 
ing nearer, it will be seen to be crossed by straight- 
sided gullies and canyons, miles in length, cutting 
across the land in every direction and rendering 
it almost impassable for horsemen or wagon-teams. 
If the forces at work have been more intense, the 
walls between the different gullies have been cut 
down to thin edges, or broken through, leaving 
isolated peaks of strange shape, while the hollows 
have been channeled out deeper and deeper; such 
places show the extreme and most characteristic 
Bad Lands formation. When the weathering has 
gone on further, the angles are rounded off, grass 
begins to grow, bushes and patches of small trees 
sprout up, water is found in places, and the still 



158 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

very rugged country becomes the favorite abode 
of the black-tail. 

During the daytime, these deer lie quietly in their 
beds, which are sometimes in the brush and among 
the matted bushes in the bottoms of the small 
branching coulies, or heads of the crooked ravines. 
More often they will be found in the thickets of 
stunted cedars clothing the brinks of the canyons or 
the precipitous slopes of the great chasms into which 
the ground is cleft and rent; or else among the 
groves of gnarled pines on the sides of the buttes, 
and in the basins and pockets between the spurs. 
If the country is not much hunted over, a buck or 
old doe will often take its midday rest out in the 
open, lying down among the long grass or shrub- 
bery on one of the bare benches at the head of a 
ravine, at the edge of the dense brush with which 
its bottom and sides are covered. In such a case, 
a position is always chosen from which a look-out 
can be kept all around; and the moment any sus- 
picious object is seen, the deer slips off into the 
thicket below him. Perhaps the favorite resting- 
places are the rounded edges of the gorges, just 
before the sides of the latter break sheer off. Here 
the deer lies, usually among a few straggling 
pines or cedars, on the very edge of the straight 
side-wall of the canyon, with a steep-shelving slope 
above him, so that he can not be seen from the 
summit; and in such places it is next to impossible 
to get at him. If lying on a cedar-grown spur or 
ridge-point, the still-hunter has a better chance, for 



The Black-Tail Deer 159 

the evergreen needles with which the ground is 
covered enable a man to walk noiselessly, and, by 
stooping or going on all fours, he can keep under 
the branches. But it is at all times hard and un- 
satisfactory work to find and successfully still-hunt 
a deer that is enjoying its day rest. Generally, the 
only result is to find the warm, fresh bed from 
which the deer has just sneaked off, the blades of 
grass still slowly rising, after the hasty departure 
of the weight that has flattened them down; or 
else, if in dense cover, the hunter suddenly hears 
a scramble, a couple of crashing bounds through 
the twigs and dead limbs, and gets a momentary 
glimpse of a dark outline vanishing into the thicket 
as the sole reward of his labor. Almost the only 
way to successfully still-hunt a deer in the middle 
of the day, is to find its trail and follow it up to 
the resting-places, and such a feat needs an expert 
tracker and a noiseless and most skilful stalker. 

The black-tail prefers to live in the neighborhood 
of water, where he can get it every twenty-four 
hours; but he is perfectly wilHng to drink only 
every other day, if, as is often the case, he happens 
to be in a very dry locality. Nor does he stay long 
in the water or near it, like the white-tail, but 
moves off as soon as he is no longer thirsty. On 
moonlight nights he feeds a good deal of the time, 
and before dawn he is always on foot for his break- 
fast ; the hours around daybreak are those in which 
most of his grazing is done. By the time the sun 
has been up an hour he is on his way homeward, 



i6o Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

grazing as he goes ; and he will often stay for some 
little time longer, if there has been no disturbance 
from man or other foes, feeding among the scat- 
tered scrub cedars skirting the thicket in which he 
intends to make his bed for the day Having once 
made his bed he crouches very close in it, and is 
difficult to put up during the heat of the day; but 
as the afternoon wears on he becomes more restless, 
and will break from his bed and bound off at much 
smaller provocation, while if the place is lonely he 
will wander out into the open hours before sunset. 
If, however, he is in much danger of being molested, 
he will keep close to his hiding-place until nearly 
nightfall, when he ventures out to feed. Owing 
to the lateness of his evening appearance in locali- 
ties where there is much hunting, it is a safer plan 
to follow him in the early morning, being on the 
ground and ready to start out by the time the first 
streak of dawn appears. Often I have lost deer 
when riding home in the evening, because the dusk 
had deepened so that it was impossible to distin- 
guish clearly enough to shoot. 

One day one of my cowboys and myself were 
returning from an unsuccessful hunt, about night- 
fall, and were still several miles from the river, 
when a couple of yearling black- tails jumped up 
in the bed of the diy creek down which we were 
riding. Our horses though stout and swift were 
not well trained; and the instant we were off their 
backs they trotted off. No sooner were we on the 
ground and trying to sight the deer, one of which 



The Black-Tail Deer i6i 

was cantering slowly off among the bushes, than 
we found we could not catch the bead sights of 
our rifles, the outlines of the animals seeming- 
vague, and shadowy, and confounding themselves 
with the banks and dull green sage bushes behind 
them. Certainly six or eight shots were fired, we 
doing our best to aim, but without any effect; and 
when we gave it up and turned to look for our 
horses we were annoyed to see the latter trotting 
off down the valley half a mile away. We went 
after at a round pace; but darkness closed in be- 
fore we had gained at all on them. There was 
nothing left to do but to walk on down the valley 
to the bottoms, and then to wade the river; as the 
latter was quite high, we had to take off our clothes, 
and it is very uncomfortable to feel one's way across 
a river at night, in bare feet, with the gun and the 
bundle of clothes held high overhead. How- 
ever, when across the river and half a mile from 
home, we ran into our horses — a piece of good luck, 
as otherwise we should have had to spend the next 
,day in looking for them. 

Almost the only way in which it is possible to 
aim after dark is to get the object against the 
horizon, toward the light. One of the finest bucks 
I ever killed was shot in this way. It was some 
little time after the sun had set, and I was hurrying 
home, riding down along a winding creek at a 
gallop. The middle of the bottom was covered with 
brush, while the steep, grassy, rounded hills on each 
side sent off spurs into the valley, the part between 



1 62 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

every two spurs making a deep pocket. The horse's 
feet were unshod and he made very little noise, 
coming down against the wind. While passing a 
deep pocket I heard from within a snort and stamp- 
ing of feet, the well-known sounds made by a 
startled deer. Pulling up short I jumped off the 
horse — it was Manitou, — who instantly began 
feeding with perfect indifference to what he prob- 
ably regarded as an irrational freak of his master; 
and, aiming as well as I could in the gathering 
dusk, held the rifle well ahead of a shadowy gray 
object which was scudding along the base of the 
hill toward the mouth of the pocket. The ball 
struck in front of and turned the deer, which then 
started obliquely up the hill. A second shot missed 
it; and I then (here comes in the good of having 
a repeater) knelt down and pointed the rifle against 
the sky line, at the place where the deer seemed 
likely to top the bluff. Immediately afterward the 
buck appeared, making the last jump with a great 
effort which landed him square on the edge, as 
sharply outlined as a silhouette against the fading 
western light. My rifle bead was just above him; 
pulling it down I fired, as the buck paused for a 
second to recover himself from his last great bound, 
and with a crash the mighty antlered beast came 
rolling down the hill, the bullet having broken his 
back behind the shoulders, afterward going out 
through his chest. 

At times a little caution must be used in ap- 
proaching a wounded buck, for if it is not disabled 



The Black-Tail Deer 163 

it may be a rather formidable antagonist. In my 
own experience I have never known a wounded 
buck to do more than make a pass with his horns, 
or, in plunging when the knife enters his throat, 
to strike with his forefeet. But one of my men 
was regularly charged by a great buck, which he 
had wounded, and which was brought to bay on 
the ice by a dog. It seemed to realize that the dog 
was not the main antagonist, and knocking him over 
charged straight past him at the man, and as the 
latter had in his haste not reloaded his rifle, he 
might have been seriously injured had it not been 
for the dog, a very strong and plucky one, which 
caught the buck by the hock and threw him. The 
buck got up and again came straight at his foe, 
uttering a kind of grunting bleat, and it was not 
till after quite a scuffle that the man, by the help 
of the dog, got him down and thrust the knife in 
his throat. Twice I have known hounds to be killed 
by bucks which they had brought to bay in the 
rutting season. One of these bucks was a savage 
old fellow with great thick neck and sharp-pointed 
antlers. He came to bay in a stream, under a bank 
thickly matted with willows which grew down into 
the water, guarding his rear and flanks, while there 
was a small pool in his front across which the hounds 
had to swim. Backing in among the willows he 
rushed out at every dog that came near, striking 
it under water with his forefeet, and then again 
retreating to his fortress. In this way he kept the 
whole pack off, and so injured one hound that he 



164 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

had to be killed. Indeed^ a full-grown buck with 
antlers would be a match for a wolf, unless surprised, 
and could probably beat off a cougar if he received 
the latter's spring fairly on his prong points. 

Bucks fight fiercely among themselves during the 
rutting season. At that time the black-tail, unlike 
the w^hite-tail, is found in bands, somewhat like 
those of the elk, but much smaller, and the bucks of 
each band keep up an incessant warfare. A weak 
buck promptly gets out of the way if charged by 
a large one; but when two of equal strength come 
together the battle is well fought. Instances occa- 
sionally occur, of a pair of these duelists getting 
their horns firmly interlocked and thus perishing; 
but these instances are much rarer, owing to the 
shape of the antlers, than with the white-tail, of 
which species I have in my own experience come 
across two or three sets of skulls held together by 
their interlacing antlers, the bearers of which had 
doubtless died owing to their inability to break 
aw^ay from each other. 

A black-tail buck is one of the most noble-looking 
of all deer. His branching and symmetrically 
curved antlers are set on a small head, carried with 
beautiful poise by the proud, massive neck. The 
body seems almost too heavy for the slender legs, 
and yet the latter bear it as if they were rods of 
springing steel. Every movement is full of alert, 
fiery life and grace, and he steps as lightly as though 
he hardly trod the earth. The large, sensitive ears 
are thrown forward to catch the slightest sound; 



The Black-Tail Deer 165 

and in the buck they are not too conspicuous, though 
they are the only parts of his frame which to any 
e3^e can be said to take away from his beauty. They 
give the doe a somewhat mulish look ; at a distance, 
the head of a doe peering out from among twigs 
looks like a great black V. To me, however, even 
in the case of the doe, they seem to set off and 
strengthen by contrast the delicate, finely molded 
look of the head. Owing to these ears the species 
is called in the books the Mule Deer, and every now 
and then a plainsman will speak of it by this title. 
But all plainsmen know it generally, and ninety-nine 
out of a hundred know it only, as the Black-tail 
Deer; and as this is the title by which it is known 
among all who hunt it or live near it, it should 
certainly be called by the same name in the books. 
But though so grand and striking an object when 
startled, or when excited, whether by curiosity or 
fear, love or hate, a black-tail is nevertheless often 
very hard to make out when standing motionless 
among the trees and brushwood, or when lying 
down among the bowlders. A raw hand at hunting 
has no idea how hard it is to see a deer when at rest. 
The color of the hair is gray, almost the same tint 
as that of the leafless branches and tree trunks ; for 
of course the hunting season is at its height only 
when the leaves have fallen. A deer standing mo- 
tionless looks black or gray, according as the sun- 
light strikes it; but always looks exactly the same 
color as the trees around it. It generally stands or 
lies near some tree trunks; and the eye may pass 



1 66 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

over it once or twice without recognizing its real 
nature. In the brush it is still more difficult, and 
there a deer's form is often absolutely indistinguish- 
able from the surroundings, as one peers through 
the mass of interlacing limbs and twigs. Once an 
old hunter and myself in walking along the ridge 
of a scoria butte passed by without seeing them, 
three black-tail lying among the scattered bowlders 
of volcanic rock on the hillside, not fifty yards from 
us. After a little practical experience a would-be 
hunter learns not to expect deer always, or even gen- 
erally, to appear as they do when near by or sud- 
denly startled; but on the contrary to keep a sharp 
look-out on every dull-looking red or yellow patch 
he sees in a thicket, and to closely examine any 
grayish-looking object observed on the hillsides, for 
it is just such small patches or obscure-looking ob- 
jects which are apt, if incautiously approached, to 
suddenly take to themselves legs, and go bounding 
off at a rate which takes them out of danger before 
the astonished tyro has really waked up to the fact 
that they are deer. The first lesson to be learned 
in still-hunting is the knowledge of how to tell what 
objects are and what are not deer; and to learn it 
is by no means as easy a task as those who have 
never tried it would think. 

When he has learned to see a deer, the novice 
then has to learn to hit it, and this again is not the 
easy feat it seems. That he can do well with a 
shotgun proves very little as to a man's skill with 
the rifle, for the latter carries but one bullet, and can 



The Black-Tail Deer 167 

therefore hit in but one place, while with a shotgun, 
if you hold a foot off your mark you will be nearly 
as apt to hit as if you held plumb centre. Nor does 
mere practice at a mark avail, though excellent in its 
way; for a deer is never seen at a fixed and ascer- 
tained distance, nor is its outline often clearly and 
sharply defined as with a target. Even if a man 
keeps cool — and for the first shot or two he will 
probably be flurried — he may miss an absurdly easy 
shot by not taking pains. I remember on one occa- 
sion missing two shots in succession where it seemed 
really impossible for a man to help hitting. I was 
out hunting on horseback with one of my men, and 
on loping round the corner of a brushy valley came 
suddenly in sight of a buck with certainly more 
than a dozen points on his great spreading antlers. 
I jumped off my horse instantly, and fired as he 
stood facing me not over forty yards off; fired, 
as I supposed, perfectly cooll}^ though without drop- 
ping on my knee as I should have done. The shot 
must have gone high, for the buck bounded away 
unharmed, heedless of a second ball ; and immediate- 
ly his place was taken by another, somewhat smaller, 
who sprang out of a thicket into almost the iden- 
tical place where the big buck had stood. Again 
I fired and missed ; again the buck ran off, and was 
shot at and missed while running — all four shots 
being taken within fifty yards. I clambered on to 
the horse without looking at my companion, but 
too conscious of his smothered disfavor; after rid- 
ing a few hundred yards, he said with forced polite- 



i68 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

ness and a vague desire to offer some cheap con- 
solation, that he supposed I had done my best; to 
which I responded with asperity that Td be damned 
if I had ; and we finished our journey homeward in 
silence. A man is likely to overshoot at any dis- 
tance; but at from twenty-five to seventy-five yards 
he is certain to do so if he is at all careless. 

Moreover, besides not missing, a man must learn 
to hit his deer in the right place; the first two or 
three times he shoots he will probably see the whole 
deer in the rifle sights, instead of just the particular 
spot he wishes to strike; that is, he will aim in a 
general way at the deer's whole body — which will 
probably result in a wound not disabling the ani- 
mal in the least for the time, although ensuring its 
finally dying a lingering and painful death. The 
most instantaneously fatal places are the brain and 
any part of the spinal column ; but these offer such 
small marks that it is usually only by accident they 
are hit. The mark at any part of which one can 
fire with safety is a patch about eight inches or a 
foot square, including the shoulder-blades, lungs, 
and heart A kidney-shot is very fatal ; but a black- 
tail will go all day with a bullet through his entrails, 
and in cold weather I have known one to run sev- 
eral miles with a portion of its entrails sticking out 
of a wound and frozen solid. To break both 
shoulders by a shot as the deer stands sideways to 
the hunter, brings the buck down in its tracks ; but 
perhaps the best place at which to aim is the point 
in the body right behind the shoulder-blade. On 



The Black-Tail Deer 169 

receiving a bullet in this spot the deer will plunge 
forward for a jump or two, and then go some fifty 
yards in a labored gallop; will then stop, sway un- 
steadily on its legs for a second, and pitch forward 
on its side. When the hunter comes up he will find 
his quarry stone dead. If the deer stands facing 
the hunter it offers only a narrow mark, but either 
a throat or chest-shot will be fatal. 

Good shooting is especially necessary after black- 
tail, because it is so very tenacious of life; much 
more so than the white-tail, or, in proportion to 
its bulk, than the elk. For this reason it is of the 
utmost importance to give an immediately fatal or 
disabling wound, or the game will almost certainly 
be lost. It is wonderful to see how far and how fast 
a seemingly crippled deer will go. Of course, a 
properly trained dog would be of the greatest use 
in tracking and bringing to bay wounded black-tail ; 
but, unless properly trained to come in to heel, a 
dog is worse than useless; and, anyhow, it will be 
hard to keep one, as long as the wolf-hunters strew 
the ground so plentifully with poisoned bait. We 
have had several hunting dogs on our ranch at dif- 
ferent times ; generally wirehaired deer hounds, fox- 
hounds, or greyhounds, by no means absolutely 
[pure in blood; but they all, sooner or later, suc- 
cumbed to the effects of eating poisoned meat. 
Some of them were quite good hunting dogs, the 
rough deer-hounds being perhaps the best at follow- 
ing and tackling a wounded buck. They were all 
very eager for the sport, and when in the morning 

H Vol. IV. 



lyo Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

we started out on a hunt the dogs were apparently 
more interested than the men; but their judgment 
did not equal their zeal, and lack of training made 
them on the whole more bother than advantage. 

But much more than good shooting is necessary 
before a man can be called a good hunter. Indians, 
for example, get a good deal of game, but they are 
in most cases very bad shots. Once, while going 
up the Clear Fork of the Powder, in northern 
Wyoming, one of my men, an excellent hunter, and 
myself rode into a large camp of Cheyennes; and 
after a while started a shooting-match vnth some of 
them. We had several trials of skill with the rifle, 
and, a good deal to my astonishment, I found that 
most of the Indians (quite successful hunters, to 
judge by the quantity of smoked venison lying 
round) were very bad shots indeed. None of them 
came anywhere near the hunter w^ho was with me; 
nor, indeed, to myself. An Indian gets his game by 
his patience, his stealth, and his tireless persever- 
ance; and a white to be really successful in still- 
hunting must learn to copy some of the Indian's 
traits. 

While the game butchers, the skin hunters, and 
their Hke, work such brutal slaughter among the 
plains animals that these will soon be either totally 
extinct or so thinned out as to cease being promi- 
nent features of plains life, yet, on the other hand, 
the nature of the country debars them from follow- 
ing certain murderous and unsportsmanlike forms of 
hunting much in vogue in other quarters of our 



The Black-Tail Deer 171 

land. There is no deep water into which a deer can 
be driven by hounds, and then shot at arm's-length 
from a boat, as is the fashion with some of the city 
sportsmen who infest the Adirondack forests dur- 
ing the hunting season ; nor is the winter snow ever 
deep enough to form a crust over which a man can 
go on snowshoes, and after running down a deer, 
which plunges as if in a quagmire, knock the poor, 
wornout brute on the head with an axe. Fire- 
hunting is never tried in the cattle country ; it would 
be far more likely to result in the death of a steer 
or pony than in the death of a deer, if attempted on 
foot with a torch, as is done in some of the Southern 
States ; while the streams are not suited to the float- 
ing or jacking with a lantern in the bow of the 
canoe, as practiced in the Adirondacks. Floating 
and fire-hunting, though by no means to be classed 
among the nobler kinds of sport, yet have a certain 
fascination of their own, not so much for the sake 
of the actual hunting, as for the novelty of being 
out in the wilderness at night ; and the noiselessness 
absolutely necessary to ensure success often enables 
the sportsman to catch curious glimpses of the night 
life of the different kinds of wild animals. 

If it were not for the wolf poison, the plains 
country would be peculiarly fitted for hunting with 
hounds; and, if properly carried on, there is no 
manlier form of sport. It does not imply in the 
man who follows it the skill that distinguishes the 
successful still-hunter, but it has a dash and excite- 
ment all its own, if the hunter follows the hounds 



172 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

on horseback. But, as carried on in the Adirondacks 
and in the Eastern and Southern mountains gener- 
ally, hounding deer is not worthy of much regard. 
There the hunter is stationed at a runway over 
which deer will probably pass, and has nothing to 
do but sit still for a number of weary hours and per- 
haps put a charge of buckshot into a deer running 
by but a few yards off. If a rifle instead of a shot- 
gun is used, a certain amount of skill is necessary, 
for then it is hard to hit a deer running, no matter 
how close up; but even with this weapon all the 
sportsman has to do is to shoot well; he need not 
show knowledge of a single detail of hunting craft, 
nor need he have any trait of mind or body such as 
he must possess to follow most other kinds of the 
chase. 

Deer-hunting on horseback is something widely 
different. Even if the hunters carry rifles and them- 
selves kill the deer, using the dogs merely to drive 
it out of the brush, they must be bold and skilful 
horsemen, and must show good judgment in riding 
to cut off the quarry, so as to be able to get a shot 
at it. This is the common American method of 
hunting the deer in those places where it is followed 
with horse and hound; but it is also coursed with 
greyhounds in certain spots where the lay of the land 
permits this form of sport, and in many districts, 
even where ordinary hounds are used, the riders go 
unarmed and merely follow the pack till the deer is 
bayed and pulled down. All kinds of hunting on 
horseback — and most hunting on horseback is done 



The Black-Tail Deer 173 

with hounds — tend to bring out the best and manh- 
est qualities in the men who follow them, and they 
should be encouraged in every way. Long after 
the rifleman, as well as the game he hunts, shall 
have vanished from the plains, the cattle country 
will afford fine sport in coursing hares ; and both 
w^olves and deer could be followed and killed with 
packs of properly trained hounds, and such sport 
w^ould be even more exciting than still-hunting 
with the rifle. It is on the great plains lying west 
of the Missouri that riding to hounds wall in the 
end receive its fullest development as a national 
pastime. 

But at present, for the reasons already stated, it 
is almost unknown in the cattle country; and the 
ranchman who loves sport must try still-hunting — 
and by still-hunting is meant pretty much every kind 
of chase w^here a single man, unaided by a dog, and 
almost always on foot, outgenerals a deer and kills 
it with the rifle. To do this successfully, unless 
deer are very plenty and tame, implies a certain 
knowledge of the country, and a good knowledge of 
the habits of the game. The hunter must keep a 
sharp lookout for deer sign ; for, though a man soon 
gets to have a general knowledge of the kind of 
places in which deer are likely to be, yet he will 
also find that they are either very capricious, or else 
that no man has more than a partial understanding 
of their tastes and likings, for many spots apparently 
just suited to them will be almost uninhabited, while 
in others they will be found where it would hardly 



174 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

occur to any one to suspect their presence. Any 
cause may temporarily drive deer out of a given lo- 
cality. Still-hunting, especially, is sure to send many 
away, while rendering the others extremely wild 
and shy, and where deer have become used to being 
pursued in only one way, it is often an excellent plan 
to try some entirely different method. 

A certain knowledge of how to track deer is very 
useful. To become a really skilful tracker is most 
difficult ; and there are some kinds of ground, where, 
for instance, it is very hard and dry, or frozen solid, 
on which almost any man will be at fault. But any 
one with a little practice can learn to do a certain 
amount of tracking. On snow, of course, it is very 
easy; but, on the other hand, it is also peculiarly 
difficult to avoid being seen by the deer when the 
ground is white. After deer have been frightened 
once or twice, or have even merely been disturbed by 
man, they get the habit of keeping a watch back on 
their trail ; and when snow has fallen, a man is such 
a conspicuous object deer see him a long way off, 
and even the tamest become wild. A deer will often, 
before lying down, take a half circle back to one side 
and make its bed a few yards from its trail, where 
it can, itself unseen, watch any person tracing it up. 
A man tracking in snow needs to pay very little heed 
to the footprints, which can be followed without 
effort, but requires to keep up the closest scrutiny 
over the ground ahead of him, and on either side of 
the trail. 

In the early morning when there is a heavy dew 



The Black-Tail Deer 175 

the footprints will be as plain as possible in the grass, 
and can then be followed readily; and in any place 
where the ground is at all damp they will usually 
be plain enough to be made out without difficulty. 
When the ground is hard or dry the work is very 
much less easy, and soon becomes so difficult as 
not to be worth while following up. Indeed, at all 
times, even in the snow, tracks are chiefly of use 
to show the probable localit}^ in which a deer may 
be found ; and the still-hunter instead of laboriously 
walking along a trail will do far better to merely 
follow it until, from its freshness and direction, he 
feels confident that the deer is in some particular 
space of ground, and then hunt through it, guiding 
himself by his knowledge of the deer's habits and 
by the character of the land. Tracks are of most 
use in showing whether deer are plenty or scarce, 
whether they have been in the place recently or not. 
Generally, signs of deer are infinitely more plentiful 
than the animals themselves — although in regions 
where tracking is especially difficult deer are often 
jumped without any sign having been seen at all. 
Usually, however, the rule is the reverse, and as deer 
are likely to make any quantity of tracks the begin- 
ner is apt, judging purely from the sign, greatly to 
overestimate their number. Another mistake of the 
beginner is to look for the deer during the daytime 
in the places where their tracks were made in the 
morning, when their day beds will probably be a long 
distance off. In the night-time deer will lie down 
almost anywhere, but during the day they go some 



176 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

distance from their feeding or watering-places, as 
already explained. 

If deer are at all plenty — and if scarce only a 
master in the art can succeed at still-hunting — it 
is best not to try to follow the tracks at all, but 
merely to hunt carefully through any ground which 
from its looks seems likely to contain the animals. 
Of course the hunting must be done either against 
or across the wind, and the greatest care must be 
taken to avoid making a noise. Moccasins should 
be worn, and not a twig should be trodden on, 
nor should the dress be allowed to catch in a brush. 
Especial caution should be used in going over a 
ridge or crest; no man should ever let his whole 
body appear at once, but should first carefully peep 
over, not letting his rifle barrel come into view, 
and closely inspect every place in sight in which a 
deer could possibly stand or lie, always remem- 
bering that a deer is when still a most difficult 
animal to see, and that it will be completely hid- 
den in cover which would apparently hardly hold 
a rabbit. The rifle should be carried habitually 
so that the sun will not glance upon it. Advantage 
must be taken, in walking, of all cover, so that the 
hunter will not be a conspicuous object at any dis- 
tance. The heads of a series of brushy ravines 
should always be crossed ; and a narrow, winding val- 
ley, with patches of bushes and young trees down 
through the middle, is always a likely place. Cau- 
tion should never for a moment be forgotten, es- 
pecially in the morning or evening, the times when 



The Black-Tail Deer 177 

a hunter will get nine-tenths of his shots; for it 
is just then, when moving and feeding, that deer 
are most watchful. One will never browse for 
more than a minute or two without raising its 
head and peering about for any possible foe, the 
great, sensitive ears thrown forward to catch the 
slightest sound. But while using such caution it 
is also well to remember that as much ground should 
be crossed as possible; other things being equal, 
the number of shots obtained will correspond to 
the amount of country covered. And of course a 
man should be on the hunting ground — not starting 
for the hunting ground — by the time there is enough 
light by which to shoot. 

Deer are in season for hunting from August 
first to January first. August is really too early 
to get full enjoyment out of the sport. The bucks, 
though fat and good eating, are still in the velvet; 
and neither does nor fawns should be killed, as 
many of the latter are in the spotted coat. Be- 
sides it is very hot in the middle of the day, though 
pleasant walking in the early morning and late 
evening, and with cool nights. December is apt 
to be too cold, although with many fine days. The 
true time for the chase of the black-tail is in the 
three fall months. Then the air is fresh and bracing, 
and a man feels as if he could walk or ride all day 
long without tiring. In the bright fall weather 
the country no longer keeps its ordinary look of 
parched desolation, and the landscape loses its same- 
ness at the touch of the frost. Where everything 



lyS Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

before had been gray or dull green there are now 
patches of russet red and bright yellow. The clumps 
of ash, wild plum-trees, and rose-bushes in the 
heads and bottoms of the sloping valleys become 
spots of color that glow among the stretches of 
brown and withered grass ; the young cottonwoods, 
growing on the points of land round which flow the 
rivers and streams, change to a delicate green or 
yellow, on which the eye rests with pleasure after 
having so long seen only the dull drab of the 
prairies. Often there will be days of bitter cold, 
when a man who sleeps out in the open feels the 
need of warm furs; but still more often there will 
be days and days of sunny weather, not cold enough 
to bring discomfort, but yet so cool that the blood 
leaps briskly through a man's veins and makes him 
feel that to be out and walking over the hills is a 
pleasure in itself, even were he not in hopes of any 
moment seeing the sun glint on the horns and hide 
of some mighty buck, as it rises to face the intruder. 
On days such as these, mere life is enjoyment; and 
on days such as these, the life of a hunter is at its 
pleasantest and best. 

Many black-tail are sometimes killed in a day. 
I have never made big bags myself, for I rarely hunt 
except for a fine head or when we need meat, and if 
it can be avoided do not shoot at fawns or does ; so 
the greatest number I have ever killed in a day was 
three. This was late one November, on an occasion 
when our larder was running low. My foreman and 
I, upon discovering this fact, determined to make a 



The Black-Tail Deer 179 

trip next day back in the broken country, away from 
the river, where black-tail were almost sure to be 
found. 

We breakfasted hours before sunrise, and then 
mounted our horses and rode up the river bottom. 
The bright prairie moon was at the full, and was 
sunk in the west till it hung like a globe of white 
fire over the long row of jagged bluffs that rose 
from across the river, while its beams brought into 
fantastic relief the peaks and crests of the buttes 
upon our left. The valley of the river itself was in 
partial darkness, and the stiff, twisted branches of 
the sage brush seemed to take on uncanny shapes as 
they stood in the hollows. The cold was stinging, 
and we let our willing horses gallop with loose reins, 
their hoofs ringing on the frozen ground. After 
going up a mile or two along the course of the river 
we turned off to follow the bed of a large dry creek. 
At its mouth was a great space of ground much cut 
up by the hoofs of the cattle, which was in summer 
overflowed and almost a morass ; but now the frost- 
bound earth was like wrinkled iron beneath the 
horses' feet. Behind us the westering moon sank 
down out of sight ; and with no light but that of the 
stars, we let our horses thread their own way up the 
creek bottom. When we had gone a couple of miles 
from the river the sky in front of our faces took 
on a faint, grayish tinge, the forerunner of dawn. 
Every now and then we passed by bunches of cattle, 
lying down or standing huddled together in the 
patches of brush or under the lee of some shelving 



i8o Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

bank or other wind-break; and as the eastern heav- 
ens grew brighter, a dark form suddenly appeared 
against the sky-line, on the crest of a bluff directly 
ahead of us. Another and another came up beside 
it. A glance told us that it was a troop of ponies, 
which stood motionless, like so many silhouettes, 
their outstretched necks and long tails vividly out- 
lined against the light behind them. All in the val- 
ley was yet dark when we reached the place where 
the creek began to split up and branch out into the 
various arms and ravines from which it headed. 
We galloped smartly over the divide into a set of 
coulies and valleys which ran into a different creek, 
and selected a grassy place where there was good 
feed to leave the horses. My companion picketed 
his ; Manitou needed no picketing. 

The tops of the hills were growing rosy, but the 
sun was not yet above the horizon when we started 
off, with our rifles on our shoulders, walking in cau- 
tious silence, for we were in good ground and might 
at any moment see a deer. Above us was a plateau 
of some size, breaking off sharply at the rim into a 
surrounding stretch of very rough and rugged coun- 
try. It sent off low spurs with notched crests into 
the valleys round about, and its edges were indented 
with steep ravines and half-circular basins, their sides 
covered with clusters of gnarled and wind-beaten 
cedars, often gathered into groves of some size. 
The ground was so broken as to give excellent cover 
under which a man could approach game unseen; 
there were plenty of fresh signs of deer; and we 



The Black-Tail Deer i8i 

were confident we should soon get a shot. Keeping 
at the bottom of the gulHes, so as to be ourselves 
inconspicuous, we walked noiselessly on, cautiously 
examining every pocket or turn before we rounded 
the corner, and looking with special care along the 
edges of the patches of brush. 

At last, just as the sun had risen, we came out by 
the mouth of a deep ravine or hollow, cut in the 
flank of the plateau, with steep, cedar-clad sides; 
and on the crest of a jutting spur, not more than 
thirty yards from where I stood, was a black-tail doe, 
half facing me. I was in the shadow, and for a 
moment she could not make me out, and stood mo- 
tionless with her head turned toward me and her 
great ears thrown forward. Dropping on my knee, 
I held the rifle a little back of her shoulder — too far 
back, as it proved, as she stood quartering and not 
broadside to me. No fairer chance could ever fall 
to the lot of a hunter; but, to my intense chagrin, 
she bounded off at the report as if unhurt, disap- 
pearing instantly. My companion had now come 
up, and we ran up a rise of ground, and crouched 
down beside a great block of sandstone, in a position 
from which we overlooked the whole ravine or hol- 
low. After some minutes of quiet watchfulness, we 
heard a twig snap — the air was so still we could hear 
anything — some rods up the ravine, but below us; 
and immediately afterward a buck stole out of the 
cedars. Both of us fired at once, and with a convul- 
sive spring he rolled over backward, one bullet hav- 
ing gone through his neck, and the other — probably 



1 82 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

mine — having broken a hind leg. Immediately af- 
terward, another buck broke from the upper edge 
of the cover, near the top of the plateau, and, though 
I took a hurried shot at him, bounded over the crest, 
and was lost to sight. 

We now determined to go down into the ravine 
and look for the doe, and as there was a good deal 
of snow in the bottom and under the trees, we knew 
we could soon tell if she were wounded. After a 
little search we found her track, and, walking along 
it a few yards, came upon some drops and then a 
splash of blood. There being no need to hurry, we 
first dressed the dead buck — a fine, fat fellow, but 
with small, misshapen horns, — and then took up the 
trail of the wounded doe. Here, however, I again 
committed an error, and paid too much heed to the 
trail and too little to the country round about; and 
while following it with my eyes down on the ground 
in a place where it was faint, the doe got up some 
distance ahead and to one side of me, and bounded 
off round a corner of the ravine. The bed where 
she had lain was not very bloody, but from the fact 
of her having stopped so soon, I was sure she was 
badly wounded. However, after she got out of the 
snow the ground was as hard as flint, and it was im- 
possible to track her; the valley soon took a turn, 
and branched into a tangle of coulies and ravines. 
I deemed it probable that she would not go up hill, 
but would run down the course of the main valley; 
but as it was so uncertain, we thought it would pay 
us best to look for a new deer. 



The Black-Tail Deer 183 

Our luck, however, seemed — very deservedly — to 
have ended. We tramped on, as swiftly as was com- 
patible with quiet, for hour after hour; beating 
through the valleys against the wind, and crossing 
the brushy heads of the ravines, sometimes close to- 
gether, and sometimes keeping about a hundred 
yards apart, according to the nature of the ground. 
When we had searched all through the country 
round the head of the creek, into which we had come 
down, we walked over to the next, and went over 
it with equal care and patience. The morning was 
now well advanced, and we had to change our meth- 
od of hunting. It was no longer likely that we 
should find the deer feeding or in the open, and in- 
stead we looked for places where they might be ex- 
pected to bed, following any trails that led into 
thick patches of brush or young trees, one of us then 
hunting through the patch while the other kept 
watch without. Doubtless we must have passed 
close to more than one deer, and doubtless others 
heard us and skulked off through the thick cover; 
but, although we saw plenty of signs, we saw neither 
hoof nor hair of living thing. It is under such 
circumstances that a still-hunter needs to show res- 
olution, and to persevere until his luck turns — this 
being a euphemistic way of saying, until he ceases 
to commit the various blunders which alarm the 
deer and make them get out of the way. Plenty of 
good shots become disgusted if they do not see a 
deer early in the morning, and go home ; still more, 
if they do not see one in two or three days. Others 



184 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

will go on hunting, but become careless, stumble and 
step on dried sticks, and let their eyes fall to the 
ground. It is a good test of a man's resolution to 
see if, at the end of a long and unsuccessful tramp 
after deer, he moves just as carefully, and keeps just 
as sharp a lookout as he did at the beginning. If 
he does this, and exercises a little common-sense — 
in still-hunting, as in everything else, common-sense 
is the most necessary of qualities, — he may be sure 
that his reward will come some day; and when it 
does come, he feels a gratification that only his fel- 
low-sportsmen can understand. 

We lunched at the foot of a great clay butte, 
where there was a bed of snow. Fall or winter hunt- 
ing in the Bad Lands has one great advantage : the 
hunter is not annoyed by thirst as he is almost sure 
to be if walking for long hours under the blazing 
summer sun. If he gets very thirsty, a mouthful or 
two of snow from some hollow will moisten his lips 
and throat; and, anyhow, thirstiness is largely a 
mere matter of habit. For lunch, the best thing a 
hunter can carry is dried or smoked venison, with 
not too much salt in it. It is much better than bread, 
and not nearly so dry; and it is easier to carry, as 
a couple of pieces can be thrust into the bosom of the 
hunting-shirt or the pocket, or in fact anywhere; 
and for keeping up a man's strength there is noth- 
ing that comes up to it. 

After lunch we hunted until the shadows began 
to lengthen out, when we went back to our horses. 
The buck was packed behind good old Manitou, who 



The Black-Tail Deer 185 

can carry any amount of weight at a smart pace, 
and does not care at ah if a strap breaks and he finds 
his load dangling about his feet, an event that re- 
duces most horses to a state of frantic terror. As 
soon as loaded we rode down the valley into which 
the doe had disappeared in the morning, one taking 
each side and looking into every possible lurking 
place. The odds were all against our finding any 
trace of her ; but a hunter soon learns that he must 
take advantage of every chance, however slight. 
This time we were rewarded for our care; for after 
riding about a mile our attention was attracted by 
a white patch in a clump of low briars. On getting 
off and looking in it proved to be the white rump 
of the doe, which lay stretched out inside, stark and 
stiff. The ball had gone in too far aft and had come 
out on the opposite side near her hip, making a mor- 
tal wound, but one which allowed her to run over 
a mile before dying. It was little more than an ac- 
cident that we in the end got her ; and my so nearly 
missing at such short range was due purely to care- 
lessness and bad judgment. I had killed too many 
deer to be at all nervous over them, and was as cool 
with a buck as with a rabbit; but as she was so 
close I made the common mistake of being too much 
in a hurry, and did not wait to see that she was 
standing quartering to me and that consequently 
I should aim at the point of the shoulder. As a re- 
sult the deer was nearly lost. 

Neither of my shots had so far done me much 
credit ; but, at any rate I had learned where the 



1 86 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

error lay, and this is going a long way toward cor- 
recting it. I kept wishing that I could get another 
chance to see if I had not profited by my lessons; 
and before we reached home my wish was gratified. 
We were loping down a grassy valley, dotted with 
clumps of brush, the wind blowing strong in our 
faces, and deadening the noise made by the hoofs on 
the grass. As we passed by a piece of broken 
ground a yearling black- tail buck jumped into view 
and cantered away. I was off Manitou's back in an 
instant. The buck was moving slowly, and was 
evidently soon going to stop and look round, so I 
dropped on one knee, with my rifle half raised, and 
waited. When about sixty yards ofT he halted and 
turned sidewise to me, offering a beautiful broad- 
side shot. I aimed at the spot just behind the shoul- 
der and felt I had him. At the report he went off, 
but with short, weak bounds, and I knew he would 
not go far; nor did he, but stopped short, swayed 
unsteadily about, and went over on his side, dead, 
the bullet clean through his body. 

Each of us already had a deer behind his saddle, 
so we could not take the last buck along with us. 
Accordingly we dressed him, and hung him up by 
the heels to a branch of a tree, piling the brush 
around as if building a slight pen or trap, to keep off 
the coyotes ; who, anyhow, are not apt to harm game 
that is hanging up, their caution seeming to make 
them fear that it will not be safe to do so. In such 
cold weather a deer hung up in this way will keep 
an indefinite length of time ; and the carcass was all 



The Black-Tail Deer 187 

right when a week or two afterward we sent out the 
buckboard to bring it back. 

A stout buckboard is very useful on a ranch, 
where men are continually taking short trips on 
which they do not wish to be encumbered by the 
heavy ranch wagon. Pack ponies are always a nui- 
sance, though of course an inevitable one in making 
journeys through mountains or forests. But on the 
plains a buckboard is far more handy. The blank- 
ets and provisions can be loaded upon it, and it can 
then be given a definite course to travel or point to 
reach; and meanwhile the hunters, without having 
their horses tired by carrying heavy packs, can strike 
off and hunt wherever they wish. There is little or 
no difficulty in going over the prairie, but it needs 
a skilful plainsman, as well as a good teamster, to 
take a wagon through the Bad Lands. There are 
but two courses to follow. One is to go along the 
bottoms of the valleys ; the other is to go along the 
tops of the divides. The latter is generally the best ; 
for each valley usually has at its bottom a deep wind- 
ing ditch with perpendicular banks, which wanders 
first to one side and then to the other, and has to be 
crossed again and again, while a little way from it 
begin the gullies and gulches which come down from 
the side hills. It is no easy matter to tell which 
is the main divide, as it curves and twists about, and 
is all the time splitting up into lesser ones, which 
merely separate two branches of the same creek. 
If the teamster does not know the lay of the land 
he will be likely to find himself in a cul-de-sac, from 



1 88 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

which he can only escape by going back a mile or 
two and striking out afresh. In very difficult coun- 
try the horsemen must be on hand to help the team 
pull up the steep places. Many horses that will not 
pull a pound in harness will haul for all there is in 
them from the saddle; Manitou is a case in point. 
Often obstacles will be encountered across which it 
is simply impossible for any team to drag a loaded 
or even an empty wagon. Such are steep canyons, 
or muddy-bottomed streams with sheer banks, espe- 
cially if the latter have rotten edges. The horses 
must then be crossed first and the wagon dragged 
over afterward by the aid of long ropes. Often it 
may be needful to build a kind of rude bridge or 
causeway on which to get the anim.als over; and if 
the canyon is very deep the wagon may have to be 
taken in pieces, let down one side, and hauled up 
the other. An immense amount of labor may be 
required to get over a very trifling distance. Pack 
animals, however, can go almost anywhere that a 
man can. 

Although still-hunting on foot, as described above, 
is on the whole the best way to get deer, yet there 
are many places where from the nature of the land 
the sport can be followed quite as well on horseback, 
than which there is no more pleasant kind of hunt- 
ing. The best shot I ever made in my life — a shot 
into which, however, I am afraid the element of 
chance entered much more largely than the element 
of skill — was made while hunting black-tail on horse- 
back. 



The Black-Tail Deer 189 

We were at that time making quite a long trip 
with the wagon, and were going up the fork of a 
plains river in western Montana. As we were out 
of food, those two of our number who usually un- 
dertook to keep the camp supplied with game deter- 
mined to make a hunt off back of the river after 
black-tail; for though there were some white-tail 
in the more densely timbered river bottoms, we had 
been unable to get any. It was arranged that the 
wagon should go on a few miles, and then halt for 
the night, as it was already the middle of the after- 
noon when we started out. The country resembled 
in character other parts of the cattle plains, but it 
was absolutely bare of trees except along the bed 
of the river. The rolling hills sloped steeply off 
into long valleys and deep ravines. They were 
sparsely covered with coarse grass, and also with an 
irregular growth of tall sage-brush, which in some 
places gathered into dense thickets. A beginner 
would have thought the country entirely too barren 
of cover to hold deer, but a very little experience 
teaches one that deer will be found in thickets of 
such short and sparse growth that it seems as if they 
could hide nothing ; and, what is more, that they will 
often skulk round in such thickets without being dis- 
covered. And a black-tail is a bold, free animal, lik- 
ing to go out in comparatively open country, where 
he must trust to his own powers, and not to any con- 
cealment, to protect him from danger. 

Where the hilly country joined the alluvial river 
bottom, it broke off into steep bluffs, up which none 



190 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

but a Western pony could have climbed. It is really 
wonderful to see what places a pony can get 'over, 
and the indifference with which it regards tumbles. 
In getting up from the bottom we went into a wash- 
out, and then led our ponies along a clay ledge, from 
which we turned off and went straight up a very 
steep sandy bluff. My companion was ahead; just 
as he turned off the ledge, and as I was right under- 
neath him, his horse, in plunging to try to get up 
the sand bluff, overbalanced itself, and, after stand- 
ing erect on its hind legs for a second, came over 
backward. The second's pause while it stood bolt 
upright gave me time to make a frantic leap out of 
the way with my pony, which scrambled after me, 
and we both clung with hands and hoofs to the side 
of the bank, while the other horse took two as com- 
plete somersaults as I ever saw, and landed with 
a crash at the bottom of the washout, feet upper- 
most. I thought it was done for, but not a bit. 
After a moment or two it struggled to its legs, shook 
itself, and looked round in rather a shame-faced 
way, apparently not in the least the worse for the 
fall. We now got my pony up to the top by vig- 
orous pulling, and then went down for the other, 
which at first strongly objected to making another 
trial, but, after much coaxing and a good deal of 
abuse, took a start and went up without trouble. 

For some time after reaching the top of the bluffs 
we rode along without seeing an)rthing. When it 
v/as possible, we kept one on each side of a creek, 
avoiding the tops of the ridges, because while on 



The Black-Tail Deer 191 

them a horseman can be seen at a very long dis- 
tance, and going with particular caution whenever 
we went round a spur or came up over a crest. The 
country stretched away like an endless, billowy sea 
of dull-brown soil and barren sage-brush, the valleys 
making long parallel furrows, and everything hav- 
ing a look of dreary sameness. At length, as we 
came out on a rounded ridge, three black-tail bucks 
started up from a lot of sage-brush some two hun- 
dred yards away and below us, and made off down 
hill. It was a very long shot, especially to try run- 
ning, but, as game seemed scarce and cartridges 
were plenty, I leaped off the horse, and, kneeling, 
fired. The bullet went low, striking in line at the 
feet of the hindmost. I was very high next time, 
making a wild shot above and ahead of them, which 
had the effect of turning them, and they went off 
round a shoulder of a bluff, being by this time down 
in the valley. Having plenty of time I elevated the 
sights (a thing I hardly ever do) to four hundred 
yards and waited for their reappearance. Mean- 
while they had evidently gotten over their fright, 
for pretty soon one walked out from the other side 
of the bluff, and came to a standstill, broadside to- 
ward me. He was too far off for me to see his 
horns. As I was raising the rifle another stepped 
out and began to walk toward the first. I thought 
I might as well have as much of a target as possible 
to shoot at, and waited for the second buck to come 
out further, which he did immediately, and stood 
still just alongside of the first. I aimed above his 



192 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 

shoulders and pulled the trigger. Over went the 
two bucks ! And when I rushed down to where they 
lay I found I had pulled a little to one side, and the 
bullet had broken the backs of both. While my 
companion was dressing them I went back and paced 
off the distance. It was just four hundred and thirty- 
one long paces; over four hundred yards. Both 
were large bucks and very fat, with the velvet hang- 
ing in shreds from their antlers, for it was late in 
August. The day was waning and we had a long 
ride back to the wagon, each with a buck behind his 
saddle. When we came back to the river valley it 
was pitch dark, and it was rather ticklish work for 
our heavily laden horses to pick their way down the 
steep bluffs and over the rapid stream ; nor were we 
sorry when we saw ahead, under a bluff, the gleam 
of the camp fire, as it was reflected back from the 
canvas-topped prairie schooner, that for the time 
being represented home to us. 

This was much the best shot I ever made; and it 
is just such a shot as any one will occasionally make 
if he takes a good many chances and fires often at 
ranges where the odds are greatly against his hit- 
ting. I suppose I had fired a dozen times at animals 
four or five hundred yards off, and now, by the doc- 
trine of chances, I happened to hit ; but I would have 
been very foolish if I had thought for a moment 
that I had learned how to hit at over four hundred 
yards. I have yet to see the hunter who can hit 
with any regularity at that distance, when he has 
to judge it for himself; though I have seen plenty 



The Black-Tail Deer 193 

who could make such a long range hit now and then. 
And I have noticed that such a hunter, in talking 
over his experience, was certain soon to forget the 
numerous misses he made, and to say, and even to 
actually think, that his occasional hits represented 
his average shooting. 

One of the finest black-tail bucks I ever shot was 
killed while lying out in a rather unusual place. I 
was hunting mountain-sheep, in a stretch of very 
high and broken country, and about midday, crept 
cautiously up to the edge of a great gorge, whose 
sheer walls went straight down several hundred 
feet. Peeping over the brink of the chasm I saw 
a buck, lying out on a ledge so narrow as to barely 
hold him, right on the face of the cliff wall oppo- 
site, some distance below, and about seventy yards 
diagonally across from me. He lay with his legs 
half stretched out, and his head turned so as to give 
me an exact centre-shot at his forehead; the bullet 
going in between his eyes, so that his legs hardly 
so much as twitched when he received it. It was 
toilsome and almost dangerous work climbing out 
to where he lay; I have never known any other in- 
dividual, even of this bold and adventurous species 
of deer, to take its noonday siesta in a place so bar- 
ren of all cover and so difficult of access even to the 
most sure-footed cHmber. This buck was as fat 
as a prize sheep, and heavier than any other I have 
ever killed; while his antlers also were, with two 
exceptions, the best I ever got. 

END OP PART ONE 

I Vol. IV. 



HUNTING TRIPS ON THE PRAIRIE 
AND IN THE MOUNTAINS 



PART II 



HUNTING TRIPS ON THE PRAIRIE 

CHAPTER I 

A TRIP ON THE PRAIRIE 

NO antelope are found, except rarely, immediately 
round my ranch house, where the ground is 
much too broken to suit them; but on the great 
prairies, ten or fifteen miles off, they are plentiful, 
though far from as abundant as they were a few 
years ago when the cattle were first driven into the 
land. By plainsmen they are called either prong- 
horn or antelope, but are most often known by the 
latter and much less descriptive title. Where they 
are found they are always very conspicuous figures 
in the landscape ; for, far from attempting to conceal 
itself, an antelope really seems anxious to take up a 
prominent position, caring only to be able itself to 
see its foes. It is the smallest in size of the plains 
game, even smaller than a white-tail deer; and its 
hide is valueless, being thin and porous, and making 
very poor buckskin. In its whole appearance and 
structure it is a most singular creature. Unlike all 
other hollow-horned animals, it sheds its horns an- 
nually, exactly as the deer shed their solid antlers; 
but the shedding process in the prong-horn occupies 
but a very few days, so short a time, indeed, that 

(197) 



198 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

many hunters stoutly deny that it takes place at all. 
The hair is of remarkable texture, very long, coarse, 
and brittle; in the spring it comes off in handfuls. 
In strong contrast to the reddish yellow of the other 
parts of the body, the rump is pure white, and when 
alarmed or irritated every hair in the white patch 
bristles up on end, greatly increasing the apparent 
area of the color. The flesh, unlike that of any other 
plains animal, is equally good all through the year. 
In the fall it is hardly so juicy as deer venison, but 
in the spring, when no other kind of game is worth 
eating, it is perfectly good; and at that time of the 
year, if we have to get fresh meat, we would rather 
kill antelope than anything else; and as the bucks 
are always to be instantly distinguished from the 
does by their large horns, we confine ourselves to 
them, and so work no harm to the species. 

The antelope is a queer-looking rather than a 
beautiful animal. The curious pronged horns, great 
bulging eyes, and strange bridle-like marks and 
bands on the face and throat are more striking, but 
less handsome, than the delicate head and branching 
antlers of a deer; and it entirely lacks the latter 
animal's grace of movement. In its form and look, 
when standing still, it is rather angular and goat- 
like, and its movements merely have the charm that 
comes from lightness, speed, and agility. Its gait 
is singularly regular and even, without any of the 
bounding, rolling movement of a deer; and it is, 
consequently, very easy to hit running, compared 
with other kinds of game. 



A Trip on the Prairie 199 

Antelope possess a most morbid curiosity. The 
appearance of anything out of the way, or to which 
they are not accustomed, often seems to drive them 
nearly beside themselves wnth mingled fright and 
desire to know what it is, a combination of feelings 
that throws them into a perfect panic, during whose 
continuance they will at times seem utterly unable 
to take care of themselves. In very remote, wild 
places, to which no white man often penetrates, the 
appearance of a white-topped wagon will be enough 
to excite this feeling in the prong-horn, and in such 
cases it is not unusual for a herd to come up and 
circle round the strange object heedless of rifle- 
shots. This curiosity is particularly strong in the 
bucks during rutting-time, and one method of hunt- 
ing them is to take advantage of it, and *'flag'"' them 
up to the hunters by weaving a red handkerchief or 
some other object to and fro in the air. In very wild 
places they can sometimes be flagged up, even after 
they have seen the man; but, elsewhere, the latter 
must keep himself carefully concealed behind a ridge 
or hillock, or in tall grass, and keep cautiously wav- 
ing the handkerchief overhead. The antelope will 
look fixedly at it, stamp, snort, start away, come 
nearer by fits and starts, and run from one side to 
the other, the better to see it. Sometimes a wary old 
buck will keep this up for half an hour, and at the 
end make ofT; but, again, the attraction may prove 
too strong, and the antelope comes slowly on until 
within rifle-shot. This method of hunting, however, 
is not so much practiced now as formerly, as the 



200 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

antelope are getting continually shyer and more 
difficult to flag. I have never myself shot one in this 
manner, though I have often seen the feat performed, 
and have several times tried it myself, but always 
with the result that after I had made my arm really 
weak with waving the handkerchief to and fro, the 
antelope, which had been shifting about just out of 
range, suddenly took to its heels and made off. 

No other kind of plains game, except the big- 
horn, is as shy and sharp-sighted as the antelope; 
and both its own habits and the open nature of the 
ground on which it is found render it peculiarly dif- 
ficult to stalk. There is no cover, and if a man is 
once seen by the game the latter will not let him 
get out of sight again, ttnless it decides to go off at 
a gait that soon puts half a dozen miles between 
them. It shifts its position, so as to keep the hunter 
continually in sight. Thus, if it is standing on a 
ridge, and the hunter disappear into a ravine up 
which he intends to crawl, the antelope promptly 
gallops off to some other place of observation from 
which its foe is again visible; and this is repeated 
until the animal at last makes up its mind to start 
for good. It keeps up an incessant watch, being 
ever on the lookout for danger, far or near; and as 
it can see an immense distance, and has its home on 
ground so level that a horseman can be made out a 
mile off, its attention is apt to be attracted when still 
four or five rifle-shots beyond range, and after it has 
once caught a glimpse of the foe, the latter might as 
well give up all hopes of getting the game. 



A Trip on the Prairie 201 

But while so much more wary than deer, it is 
also at times much more foolish, and has certain 
habits — some of which, such as its inordinate curi- 
osity and liability to panic, have already been al- 
luded to — that tend to its destruction. Ordinarily, 
it is a far more difficult feat to kill an antelope than 
it is to kill a deer, but there are times when the for- 
mer can be slaughtered in such numbers that it be- 
comes mere butchery. 

The prong-horn is pre-eminently a gregarious ani- 
mal. It is found in bands almost all the year 
through. During the two or three days after .he has 
shed his horns and while the new ones are growing 
the buck retires to some out-of-the-way spot, and 
while bringing forth her fawns the doe stays by her- 
self. But as soon as possible each again rejoins the 
band ; and the fawns become members of it at a re- 
markably early age. In the late fall, when the bitter 
cold has begun, a large number of these bands col- 
lect together, and immense herds are formed which 
last throughout the winter. Thus at this season a 
man may travel for days through regions where an- 
telope are most plentiful during the hot months 
and never see one; but if he does come across any 
they will be apt to be in great numbers, most prob- 
ably along the edge of the Bad Lands, where the 
ground is rolling rather than broken, but where 
there is some shelter from the furious winter gales. 
Often they will even come down to the river bottom 
or find their way up to some plateau. They now al- 
ways hang closely about the places they have chosen 



202 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

for their winter haunts, and seem very reluctant to 
leave them. They go in dense herds, and when 
starved and weak with cold are less shy; and can 
often be killed in great numbers by any one who 
has found out where they are — though a true sports- 
man will not molest them at this season. 

Sometimes a small number of individuals will at 
this time get separated from the main herd and take 
up their abode in some place by themselves; and 
when they have once done so it is almost impossible 
to drive them away. Last winter a solitary prong- 
horn strayed into the river bottom at the mouth of 
a wide creek-valley, half a mile from my ranch, and 
stayed there for three months, keeping with the cat- 
tle, and always being found within a mile of the 
same spot. A little band at the same time estab- 
lished itself on a large plateau, about five miles long 
by two miles wide, some distance up the river above 
me, and afforded fine sport to a couple of ranchmen 
who lived not far from its base. The antelope, 
twenty or thirty in number, would not leave the pla- 
teau, which lies in the midst of broken ground; for 
it is a peculiarity of these animals, which will be 
spoken of further on, that they will try to keep in 
the open ground at any cost or hazard. The two 
ranchmen agreed never to shoot at the antelope on 
foot, but only to try to kill them from horseback, 
either with their revolvers or their Winchesters. 
They thus hunted them for the sake of the sport 
purely; and certainly they got plenty of fun out of 
them. Very few horses indeed are as fast as a 



A Trip on the Prairie 203 

prong-horn; and these few did not include any 
owned by either of my two friends. But the an- 
telope were always being obliged to break back from 
the edge of the plateau, and so were forced constantly 
to offer opportunities for cutting them off ; and these 
opportunities were still further increased by the 
two hunters separating. One of them would go to 
the upper end of the plateau and start the band, rid- 
ing after them at full speed. They would distance 
him, but would be checked in their career by com- 
ing to the brink of the cliff; then they would turn 
at an angle and give their pursuer a chance to cut 
them off; and if they kept straight up the middle 
the other hunter would head them. When a favor- 
able moment came the hunters would dash in as 
close as possible and empty their revolvers or re- 
peaters into the herd ; but it is astonishing how hard 
it is, when riding a horse at full speed, to hit any 
object, unless it is directly under the muzzle of the 
weapon. The number of cartridges spent compared 
to the number of prong-horn killed was enormous; 
but the fun and excitement of the chase were the 
main objects with my friends, to whom the actual 
killing of the game was of entirely secondary im- 
portance. They went out after them about a dozen 
times during the winter, and killed in all ten or fif- 
teen prong-horns. 

A prong-horn is by far the fleetest animal on the 
plains; one can outrun and outlast a deer with the 
greatest ease. Very swift greyhounds can overtake 
them, if hunted in leashes or couples; but only a 



204 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

remarkably good dog can run one down single- 
handed. Besides prong-horn are most plucky little 
creatures, and will make a most resolute fight against 
a dog or wolf, striking with their fore-feet and 
punching with their not very formidable horns, and 
are so quick and wiry as to be really rather hard to 
master. 

Antelope have the greatest objection to going on 
anything but open ground, and seem to be absolutely 
unable to make a high jump. If a band is caught 
feeding in the bottom of a valley leading into a 
plain they invariably make a rush straight to the 
mouth, even if the foe is stationed there, and will 
run heedlessly by him, no matter how narrow the 
mouth is, rather than not try to reach the open coun- 
try. It is almost impossible to force them into even 
a small patch of brush, and they will face almost 
certain death rather than try to leap a really very 
trifling obstacle. If caught in a glade surrounded 
by a slight growth of brushwood, they make no ef- 
fort whatever to get through or over this growth, 
but dash frantically out through the way by which 
they got in. Often the deer, especially the black-tail, 
will wander out on the edge of the plain frequented 
by antelope ; and it is curious to see the two animals 
separate the second there is an alarm, the deer mak- 
ing for the broken country, while the antelope scud 
for the level plains. Once two of my men nearly 
caught a couple of antelope in their hands. They 
were out driving in the buckboard, and saw two 
antelope, a long distance ahead, enter the mouth 



A Trip on the Prairie 205 

of a washout (a canyon in petto) ; they had strayed 
away from the prairie to the river bottom, and were 
evidently feeHng lost. My two men did not think 
much of the matter, but when opposite the mouth of 
the washout, which was only thirty feet or so wide, 
they saw the two antelope starting to come out, 
having found that it was a blind passage, with no 
outlet at the other end. Both men jumped out of the 
buckboard and ran to the entrance; the two ante- 
lope dashed frantically to and fro inside the wash- 
out. The sides were steep, but a deer would have 
scaled them at once ; yet the antelope seemed utterly 
unable to do this, and finally broke out past the two 
men and got away. They came so close that the 
men were able to touch each of them, but their 
movements were too quick to permit of their being 
caught. 

However, though unable to leap any height, an 
antelope can skim across a level jump like a bird, 
and will go over water-courses and washouts that 
very few horses indeed will face. A mountain-sheep, 
on the other hand, is a marvelous vertical leaper; 
the black-tail deer comes next; the white-tail is 
pretty good, and the elk is at any rate better than 
the antelope; but when it comes to horizontal jump- 
ing the latter can beat them all. 

In May or early June the doe brings forth her 
fawns, usually two in number, for she is very pro- 
lific. She makes her bed in some valley or hollow, 
and keeps with the rest of the band, only return- 
ing to the fawns to feed them. They lie out in the 



ao6 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

grass or under some slight bush, but are marvel- 
ously hard to find. By instinct they at once know 
how to crouch down so as to be as inconspicuous as 
possible. Once we scared away a female prong-horn 
from an apparently perfectly level hillside; and in 
riding along passed over the spot she had left and 
came upon two little fawns that could have been but 
a few hours old. They lay flat in the grass, with their 
legs doubled under them and their necks and heads 
stretched out on the ground. When we took them 
up and handled them, they soon got used to us and 
moved awkwardly round, but at any sudden noise 
or motion they would immediately squat flat down 
again. But at a very early age the fawns learn how 
to shift for themselves, and can then run almost as 
fast as their parents, even when no larger than a 
jack-rabbit. Once, while we were haying, a couple 
of my cowboys spent half an hour in trying to run 
down and capture a little fawn, but they were un- 
able to catch it, it ran so fast and ducked about so 
quickly. Antelope fawns are very easily tamed and 
make most amusing pets. We have had two or 
three, but have never succeeded in rearing any of 
them; but some of the adjoining ranchmen have 
been more fortunate. They are not nearly so pretty 
as deer fawns, having long, dangling legs and angu- 
lar bodies, but they are much more familiar and 
interesting. One of my neighbors has three live 
prong-horns, as well as two little spotted white-tail 
deer. The deer fawns are always skulking about, 
and are by no means such bold inquisitive creatures 



A Trip on the Prairie 207 

as the small antelope are. The latter have a nurse in 
the shape of a fat old ewe; and it is funny to see 
her, when alarmed, running off at a waddling gait, 
while her ungainly little foster-children skip round 
and round her, cutting the most extraordinary an- 
tics. There are a couple of very large dogs, mastiffs, 
on the place, whose natural solemnity is completely 
disconcerted by the importunities and fearlessness of 
the little antelope fawns. Where one goes the other 
two always follow, and so one of the mastiffs, while 
solemnly blinking in the sun, will suddenly find him- 
self charged at full speed by the three queer little 
creatures, who will often fairly butt up against him. 
The uneasy look of the dog, and his efforts to get 
out of the way without compromising his dignity, 
are really very comical. 

Young fawns seem to give out no scent, and 
thus many of them escape from the numerous car- 
nivorous beasts that are ever prowling about at 
night over the prairie, and which, during the spring 
months, are always fat from feeding on the bodies 
of the innocents they have murdered. If discov- 
ered by a fox or coyote during its first few days of 
existence a little fawn has no chance of life, al- 
though the mother, if present, will fight desperately 
for it; but after it has acquired the use of its legs 
it has no more to fear than have any of the older 
ones. 

Sometimes the fawns fall victims to the great 
Golden Eagle. This grand bird, the War Eagle of 
the Sioux, is not very common in the Bad Lands, 



2o8 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

but is sometimes still seen with us; and, as every- 
where else, its mere presence adds a certain gran- 
deur to its lonely haunts. Two or three years ago a 
nest was found by one of my men on the face of an 
almost inaccessible cliff, and a young bird was taken 
out from it and reared in a roughly extemporized 
cage. Wherever the eagle exists it holds undisputed 
sway over everything whose size does not protect 
it from the great bird's beak and talons; not only 
does it feed on hares, grouse, and ducks, but it will 
also attack the young fawns of the deer and ante- 
lope. Still, the eagle is but an occasional foe, and 
aside from man, the only formidable enemies the 
antelope has to fear are the wolves and coyotes. 
These are very destructive to the young, and are 
always lounging about the band to pick up any 
wounded straggler; in winter, when the ground is 
slippery and the antelope numbed and weak, they 
will often commit great havoc even among those 
that are grown up. 

The voice of the antelope is not at all like that of 
the deer. Instead of bleating it utters a quick, 
harsh noise, a kind of bark; a little like the sound 
*'kau," sharply and clearly repeated. It can be heard 
a long distance off; and is usually uttered when the 
animal is a little startled or surprised by the pres- 
ence of something it does not understand. 

The prong-horn can not go without water any 
longer than a deer can, and will go great distances 
to get it ; for space is nothing to a traveler with such 
speed and such last. No matter how dry and bar- 



A Trip on the Prairie 209 

ten may be the desert in which antelope are found, 
it may be taken for granted that they are always 
within reaching distance of some spring or pool of 
water, and that they visit it once a day. Once or 
twice I have camped out by some pool, which was 
the only one for miles around, and in every such 
case have been surprised at night by the visits of the 
antelope, who, on finding that their drinking-place 
was tenanted, would hover round at a short dis- 
tance, returning again and again and continually ut- 
tering the barking ^'kau, kau," until they became 
convinced that there was no hope of their getting 
in, when they would set off at a run for some other 
place. 

Prong-horn perhaps prefer the rolling prairies 
of short grass as their home, but seem to do almost 
equally well on the desolate and monotonous wastes 
where the sage brush and prickly pear and a few 
blades of coarse grass are the only signs of plant 
life to be seen. In such places, the prong-horn, the 
sage cock, the rattlesnake, and the horned frog alone 
are able to make out a livelihood. 

The horned frog is not a frog at all, but a lizard, 
— a queer, stumpy little fellow with spikes all over 
the top of its head and back, and given to moving 
in the most leisurely manner imaginable. Nothing 
will make it hurry. If taken home it becomes a very 
tame and quaint but also very uninteresting little 
pet. 

Rattlesnakes are only too plentiful everywhere; 
along the river bottoms, in the broken, hilly ground, 



2IO Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

and on the prairies and the great desert wastes alike. 
Every cowboy kills dozens each season. To a man 
wearing top-boots there is little or no danger while 
he is merely walking about, for the fangs can not 
get through the leather, and the snake does not 
strike as high as the knee. Indeed the rattlesnake 
is not nearly as dangerous as are most poisonous 
serpents, for it always gives fair warning before 
striking, and is both sluggish and timid. If it can it 
will get out of the way, and only coils up in its at- 
titude of defence when it believes that it is actually 
menaced. It is, of course, however, both a danger- 
ous and a disagreeable neighbor, and one of its 
annoying traits is the fondness it displays for crawl- 
ing into a hut or taking refuge among the blankets 
left out on the ground. Except in such cases men are 
rarely in danger from it, unless they happen to be 
stooping over, as was the case with one of my cow- 
boys, who had leaned over to pick up a log and was 
almost bitten by a snake which was underneath it; 
or unless the snake is encountered while stalking an 
animal. Once I was creeping up to an antelope under 
cover of some very low sage brush — so low that I 
had to lie flat on my face and push myself along 
with my hands and feet. While cautiously moving 
on in this way I was electrified by hearing almost 
by my ears the well-known ominous "whir-r-r" of 
a rattlesnake, and on hastily glancing up there was 
the reptile, not ten feet away from me, all coiled up 
and waiting. I backed off and crawled to one side, 
the rattler turning its head round to keep watch 



A Trip on the Prairie 211 

over my movements; w^hen the stalk was over (the 
antelope took alarm and ran off before I was within 
rifle-shot) I came back, hunted up^ the snake, and 
killed it. Although I have known of several men 
being bitten, I know of but one case where the bite 
caused the death of a human being. This was a girl 
who had been out milking, and was returning, in 
bare feet; the snake struck her just above the ankle, 
and in her fright she fell and was struck again in 
the neck. The double wound was too much for her, 
and the poison killed her in the course of a couple 
of hours. 

Occasionally one meets a rattlesnake whose rattle 
has been lost or injured; and such a one is always 
dangerous, because it strikes without warning. I 
once nearly lost a horse by the bite of one of these 
snakes without rattles. I was riding along a path 
when my horse gave a tremendous start and jump; 
looking back I saw that it had been struck at by a 
rattlesnake with an injured tail, which had been ly- 
ing hid in a bunch of grass, directly beside the path. 
Luckily it had merely hit the hard hoof, breaking 
one of its fangs. 

Horses differ very much in their conduct toward 
snakes. Some show great fright at sight of them or 
on hearing their rattles, plunging and rearing and 
refusing to go anywhere near the spot ; while others 
have no fear of them at all, being really perfectly 
stupid about them. Manitou does not lose his wits 
at all over them, but at the same time takes very 
good care not to come within striking distance. 



212 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

Ranchmen often suffer some loss among their 
stock owing to snake-bites; both horned cattle and 
horses, in grazing, frequently coming on snakes and 
having their noses or cheeks bitten. Generally, 
these wounds are not fatal, though very uncomfor- 
table; it is not uncommon to see a woe-begone look- 
ing mule with its head double the natural size, in 
consequence of having incautiously browsed over a 
snake. A neighbor lost a weak pony in this way; 
and one of our best steers also perished from the 
same cause. But in the latter case, the animal, 
like the poor girl spoken of above, had received two 
wounds with the poison fangs; apparently it had, 
while grazing with its head down, been first struck 
in the nose, and been again struck in the foreleg as 
it started away. 

Of all kinds of hunting, the chase of the antelope 
is pre-eminently that requiring skill in the use of 
the rifle at long range. The distance at which shots 
have to be taken in antelope hunting is at least 
double the ordinary distance at which deer are fired 
at. In pursuing most other kinds of game, a hunter 
who is not a good shot may still do excellent work ; 
but in prong-horn hunting, no man can make even 
a fairly good record unless he is a skilful marks- 
man. I have myself done but little hunting after 
antelopes, and have not, as a rule, been very suc- 
cessful in the pursuit. 

Ordinary hounds are rarely, or never, used to 
chase this game ; but coursing it with greyhounds is 
as manly and exhilarating a form of sport as can be 



A Trip on the Prairie 213 

imagined, — a much better way of hunting it than is 
shooting it with the rifle, which latter, though need- 
ing more skill in the actual use of the weapon, is in 
every other respect greatly inferior as a sport to 
still-hunting the black-tail or big-horn. 

I never but once took a trip of any length with 
antelope hunting for its chief object. This was one 
June, when all the men were away on the round-up. 
As is usual during the busy half of the ranchman's 
year, the spring and summer, when men have no 
time to hunt and game is out of condition, we had 
been living on salt pork, beans, potatoes, and bread ; 
and I had hardly had a rifle in my hand for months ; 
so, finding I had a few days to spare, I thought I 
should take a short trip on the prairie, in the beau- 
tiful June weather, and get a little sport and a little 
fresh meat out of the bands of prong-horn bucks, 
which I was sure to encounter. Intending to be gone 
but a couple of days, it was not necessary to take 
many articles. Behind my saddle I carried a blanket 
for bedding, and an oil-skin coat to ward off the 
wet; a large metal cup with the handle riveted, not 
soldered on, so that water could be boiled in it; a 
little tea and salt, and some biscuits; and a small 
waterproof bag containing my half-dozen personal 
necessaries — not forgetting a book. The whole 
formed a small, light pack, very little encumbrance 
to stout old Manitou. In June, fair weather can 
generally be counted on in the dry plains country. 

I started in the very earliest morning, when the 
intense brilliancy of the stars had just begun to 



214 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

pale before the first streak of dawn. By the time I 
left the river bottom and struck off up the valley of 
a winding creek, which led through the Bad Lands, 
the eastern sky was growing rosy; and soon the 
buttes and cliffs were lighted up by the level rays 
of the cloudless summer sun. The air was fresh and 
sweet, and odorous with the sweet scents of the 
springtime that was but barely past; the dew lay 
heavy, in glittering drops, on the leaves and the 
blades of grass, whose vivid green, at this season, 
for a short time brightens the desolate and sterile- 
looking wastes of the lonely Western plains. The 
rose-bushes were all in bloom, and their pink blos- 
soms clustered in every point and bend of the 
stream; and the sweet, sad songs of the hermit 
thrushes rose from the thickets, while the meadow 
larks perched boldly in sight as they uttered their 
louder and more cheerful music. The round-up 
had passed by our ranch, and all the cattle with our 
brands, the Maltese cross and cut dewlap, or the elk- 
horn and triangle, had been turned loose; they had 
not yet worked away from the river, and I rode by 
long strings of them, walking in single file off to 
the hills, or standing in groups to look at me as I 
passed. 

Leaving the creek I struck off among a region of 
scoria buttes, the ground rising into rounded hills 
through whose grassy covering the red volcanic 
rock showed in places, while bowlder-like frag- 
ments of it were scattered all through the valleys 
between. There were a few clumps of bushes here 



A Trip on the Prairie 215 

and there, and near one of them were two magpies, 
who Hghted on an old buffalo skull, bleached white 
by sun and snow. Magpies are birds that catch the 
eye at once from their bold black and white plumage 
and long tails; and they are very saucy and at the 
same time very cunning and shy. In spring we do 
not often see them; but in the late fall and winter 
they will come close round the huts and outbuild- 
ings on the lookout for anything to eat. If a deer 
is hung up and they can get at it they will pick it to 
pieces with their sharp bills; and their carnivorous 
tastes and their habit of coming round hunters' 
camps after the game that is left out call to mind 
their kinsman, the whiskey- jack or moose-bird of 
the Northern forests. 

After passing the last line of low, rounded scoria 
buttes, the horse stepped out on the border of the 
great, seemingly endless stretches of rolling or 
nearly level prairie, over which I had planned to 
travel and hunt for the next two or three days. At 
intervals of ten or a dozen miles this prairie was 
crossed by dry creeks, with, in places in their beds, 
pools or springs of water, and alongside a spindling 
growth of trees and bushes ; and my intention was to 
hunt across these creeks, and camp by some water- 
hole in one of them at night. 

I rode over the land in a general southerly course, 
bending to the right or left according to the nature 
of the ground and the likelihood of finding game. 
Most of the time the horse kept on a steady single- 
foot, but this was varied by a sharp lope every now 



2i6 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

and then, to ease the muscles of both steed and rider. 
The sun was well up, and its beams beat fiercely 
down on our heads from out of the cloudless sky; 
for at this season, though the nights and the early 
morning and late evening are cool and pleasant, the 
hours aroimd noon are very hot. My glass was 
slung alongside the saddle, and from every one of 
the scattered hillocks the country was scanned care- 
fully far and near; and the greatest caution was 
used in riding up over any divide, to be sure that no 
game on the opposite side was scared by the sudden 
appearance of my horse or myself. 

Nowhere, not even at sea, does a man feel more 
lonely than when riding over the far-reaching, 
seemingly never-ending plains; and after a man 
has lived a little while on or near them, their very 
vastness and loneliness and their melancholy monot- 
ony have a strong fascination for him. The land- 
scape seems always the same, and after the trav- 
eler has plodded on for miles and miles he gets to 
feel as if the distance was indeed boundless. As far 
as the eye can see there is no break; either the 
prairie stretches out into perfectly level flats, or else 
there are gentle, roUing slopes, whose crests mark 
the divides between the drainage systems of the dif- 
ferent creeks; and when one of these is ascended, 
immediately another precisely like it takes its place 
in the distance, and so roll succeeds roll in a suc- 
cession as interminable as that of the waves of the 
ocean. Nowhere else does one seem so far off from 
all mankind; the plains stretch out in deathlike and 



A Trip on the Prairie 217 

measureless expanse, and as he journeys over them 
they will for many miles be lacking in all signs of 
Hfe. Although he can see so far, yet all objects 
on the outermost verge of the horizon, even though 
within the ken of his vision, look unreal and strange ; 
for there is no shade to take away from the bright 
glare, and at a little distance things seem to shim- 
mer and dance in the hot rays of the sun. The 
ground is scorched to a dull brown^ and against its 
monotonous expanse any objects stand out with a 
prominence that makes it difficult to judge of the 
distance at which they are. A mile off one can see, 
through the strange shimmering haze, the shadowy 
white outlines of something which looms vaguely 
up till it looks as large as the canvas-top of a prairie 
wagon ; but as the horseman comes nearer it shrinks 
and dwindles and takes clearer form, until at last 
it changes into the ghastly staring skull of some 
mighty. buffalo, long dead and gone to join the rest 
of his vanished race. 

When the grassy prairies are left and the traveler 
enters a region of alkali desert and sage-brush, the 
look of the country becomes even more grim and 
forbidding. In places the alkali forms a white frost 
on the ground that glances in the sunlight like the 
surface of a frozen lake; the dusty little sage-brush, 
stunted and dried up, sprawls over the parched 
ground, from which it can hardly extract the small 
amount of nourishment necessary for even its weaz- 
ened life; the spiny cactus alone seems to be really 
in its true home. Yet even in such places antelope 

J Vol. IV. 



21 8 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

will be found, as alert and as abounding with vi- 
vacious life as elsewhere. Owing to the magnify- 
ing and distorting power of the clear, dry plains air, 
every object, no matter what its shape or color or 
apparent distance, needs the closest examination. 
A magpie sitting on a white skull, or a couple of 
ravens, will look, a quarter of a mile off, like some 
curious beast; and time and again a raw hunter 
will try to stalk a lump of clay or a burned stick; 
and after being once or twice disappointed he is apt 
to rush to the other extreme, and conclude too has- 
tily that a given object is not an antelope, when it 
very possibly is. 

During the morning I came in sight of several 
small bands or pairs of antelope. Most of them saw 
me as soon as or before I saw them, and, after watch- 
ing me with intense curiosity as long as I was in 
sight and at a distance, made off at once as soon as 
I went into a hollow or appeared to be approaching 
too near. Twice, in scanning the country narrowly 
with the glasses, from behind a sheltering divide, 
bands of prong-horn were seen that had not discov- 
ered me. In each case the horse was at once left to 
graze, while I started off after the game, nearly a 
mile distant. For the first half mile I could walk 
upright or go along half stooping; then, as the dis- 
tance grew closer, I had to crawl on all fours and 
keep behind any little broken bank, or take advan- 
tage of a small, dry watercourse; and toward the 
end work my way flat on my face, wriggling hke 
a serpent, using every stunted sage-brush or patch 



A Trip on the Prairie 219 

of cactus as a cover, bareheaded under the blaz- 
ing sun. In each case, after nearly an hour's irk- 
some, thirsty work, the stalk failed. One band sim- 
ply ran off without a second's warning, alarmed at 
some awkward movement on my part, and without 
giving a chance for a shot. In the other instance, 
while still at very long and uncertain range, I heard 
the sharp barking alarm-note of one of the prong- 
horn; the whole band instantly raising their heads 
and gazing intently at their would-be destroyer. 
They were a very long way off; but, seeing it was 
hopeless to try to get nearer I rested my rifle over 
a little mound of earth and fired. The dust came 
up in a puff to one side of the nearest antelope; 
the whole band took a few jumps and turned again ; 
the second shot struck at their feet, and they went 
off like so many racehorses, being missed again as 
they ran. I sat up by a sage-brush thinking they 
would of course not come back, when to my surprise 
I saw them wheel round with the precision of a 
cavalry squadron, all in line and fronting me, the 
white and brown markings on their heads and 
throats showing like the facings on soldiers* uni- 
forms; and then back they came charging up till 
again within long range, when they wheeled their 
line as if on a pivot and once more made off, this 
time for good, not heeding an ineffectual fusillade 
from the Winchester. Antelope often go through 
a series of regular evolutions, like so many trained 
horsemen, wheeling, turning, halting, and running 
as if under command; and their coming back to 



220 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

again run the (as it proved very harmless) gantlet 
of my fire was due either to curiosity or to one of 
those panicky freaks v^hich occasionally seize those 
ordinarily wary animals, and cause them to run into 
danger easily avoided by creatures commonly much 
more readily approached than they are. I had fired 
half a dozen shots without effect; but while no one 
ever gets over his feeling of self-indignation at miss- 
ing an easy shot at close quarters, any one who hunts 
antelope and is not of a disposition so timid as never 
to take chances, soon learns that he has to expect 
to expend a good deal of powder and lead before 
bagging his game. 

By midday we reached a dry creek and followed 
up its course for a mile or so, till a small spot of 
green in the side of a bank showed the presence of 
water, a little pool of which lay underneath. The 
ground was so rotten that it was with difficulty I 
could get Manitou down where he could drink; but 
at last both of us satisfied our thirst, and he was 
turned loose to graze, with his saddle off, so as to 
cool his back, and I, after eating a biscuit, lay on 
my face on the ground — there was no shade of any 
sort near — and dozed until a couple of hours' rest 
and feed had put the horse in good trim for the after- 
noon ride. When it came to crossing over the dry 
creek on whose bank we had rested, we almost went 
down in a quicksand, and it was only by frantic 
struggles and flounderings that we managed to get 
over. 

On account of these quicksands and mud-holes, 



A Trip on the Prairie 221 

crossing the creeks on the prairie is often very dis- 
agreeable worl-c. Even when apparently perfectly 
dry the bottom may have merely a thin crust of hard 
mud and underneath a fathomless bed of slime. If 
the grass appears wet and with here and there a 
few tussocks of taller blades in it, it is well to avoid 
it. Often a man may have to go algng a creek 
nearly a mile before he can find a safe crossing, or 
else run the risk of seeing his horse mired hard and 
fast. When a horse is once in a mud-hole it will 
perhaps so exhaust itself by its first desperate and 
fruitless struggle that it is almost impossible to get 
it out. Its bridle and saddle have to be taken off; 
if another horse is along the lariat is drawn from 
the pommel of the latter's saddle to the neck of the 
one that is in, and it is hauled out by main force. 
Otherwise a man may have to work half a day, fix- 
ing the horse's legs in the right position and then 
taking it by the forelock and endeavoring to get it 
to make a plunge; each plunge bringing it perhaps 
a few inches nearer the firm ground. Quicksands 
are even more dangerous than these mud-holes, as, 
if at all deep, a creature that can not get out immedi- 
ately is sure to be speedily engulfed. Many parts 
of the Little Missouri are impassable on account of 
these quicksands. Always in crossing unknown 
ground that looks dangerous it is best to feel your 
way very cautiously along and, if possible, to find 
out some cattle trail or even game trail which can 
be followed. 

For some time after leaving the creek nothing 



222 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

was seen ; until, on coming over the crest of the next 
great divide, I came in sight of a band of six or 
eight prong-horn about a quarter of a mile off to 
my right hand. There was a slight breeze from the 
southeast, which blew diagonally across my path to- 
ward the antelopes. The latter, after staring at me 
a minute, as I rode slowly on, suddenly started at 
full speed to run directly up wind, and therefore in 
a direction that would cut the line of my course less 
than half a mile ahead of where I was. Knowing 
that when antelope begin running in a straight line 
they are very hard to turn, and seeing that they 
would have to run a longer distance than my horse 
would to intercept them, I clapped spurs into Mani- 
tou, and the game old fellow, a very fleet runner, 
stretched himself down to the ground and seemed to 
go almost as fast as the quarry. As I had expected, 
the latter, when they saw me running, merely 
straightened themselves out and went on, possibly 
even faster than before, without changing the line 
of their flight, keeping right up wind. Both horse 
and antelope fairly flew over the ground, their 
courses being at an angle that would certainly bring 
them together. Two of the antelope led, by some 
fifty yards or so, the others, who were all bunched 
together. 

Nearer and nearer we came, Manitou, in spite of 
carrying myself and the pack behind the saddle, 
gamely holding his own, while the antelope, with 
outstretched necks, went at an even, regular gait 
that offered a strong contrast to the springing bounds 



A Trip on the Prairie 223 

with which a deer runs. At last the two leading 
animals crossed the line of my flight ahead of me; 
when I pulled short up, leaped from Manitou's back, 
and blazed into the band as they went by not forty 
yards off, aiming well ahead of a fine buck who was 
on the side nearest me. An antelope's gait is so 
even that it offers a good running mark ; and as the 
smoke blew off I saw the buck roll over like a rab- 
bit, with both shoulders broken. I then emptied the 
Winchester at the rest of the band, breaking one 
hind leg of a young buck. Hastily cutting the throat 
of, and opening, the dead buck, I again mounted and 
started off after the wounded one. But, though only 
on three legs, it went astonishingly fast, having had 
a good start; and after following it over a mile I 
gave up the pursuit, though I had gained a good 
deal; for the heat was very great, and I did not 
deem it well to tire the horse at the beginning of 
the trip. Returning to the carcass, I cut off the 
hams and strung them beside the saddle; an ante- 
lope is so spare that there is very little more meat on 
the body. 

This trick of running in a straight line is another 
of the antelope's peculiar characteristics .which fre- 
quently lead it into danger. Although with so 
much sharper eyes than a deer, antelope are in many 
ways far stupider animals, more like sheep, and 
they especially resemble the latter in their habit of 
following a leader, and in their foolish obstinacy in 
keeping to a course they have once adopted. If a 
horseman starts to head off a deer the latter will 



224 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

always turn long before he has come within range, 
but quite often an antelope will merely increase his 
speed and try to pass ahead of his foe. Almost al- 
ways, however, one if alone will keep out of gunshot, 
owing to the speed at which he goes, but if there 
are several in a band which is well strung out, the 
leader only cares for his own safety and passes well 
ahead himself. The others follow like sheep, with- 
out turning in the least from the line the first fol- 
lowed, and thus may pass within close range. If 
the leader bounds into the air, those following will 
often go through exactly the same motions; and if 
he turns, the others are very apt to each in succession 
run up and turn in the same place, unless the whole 
band are manoeuvring together, like a squadron of 
cavalry under orders, as has already been spoken of. 
After securing the buck's hams and head (the lat- 
ter for the sake of the horns, which were unusually 
long and fine) , I pushed rapidly on without stopping 
to lumt, to reach some large creek which should con- 
tain both wood and water, for even in summer a 
fire adds greatly to the comfort and cosiness of a 
night camp. When the sun had nearly set we went 
over a divide and came in sight of a creek fulfilling 
the required conditions. It wound its way through 
a valley of rich bottom land, cottonwood trees of no 
great height or size growing in thick groves along 
its banks, while its bed contained many deep pools of 
water, some of it fresh and good. I rode into a 
great bend, with a grove of trees on its right and 
containing excellent feed. Manitou was loosed, 



A Trip on the Prairie 225 

with the lariat round his neck, to feed where he 
wished until I went to bed, when he was to be taken 
to a place where the grass was thick and succulent, 
and tethered out for the night. There was any 
amount of wood with which a fire was started for 
cheerfulness, and some of the coals were soon raked 
off apart to cook over. The horse blanket was 
spread on the ground, with the oil-skin over it as a 
bed, underneath a spreading cottonwood tree, while 
the regular blanket served as covering. The metal 
cup was soon filled with water and simmering over 
the coals to make tea, while an antelope steak was 
roasting on a forked stick. It is wonderful how 
cosy a camp, in clear weather, becomes if there is a 
good fire and enough to eat, and how sound the 
sleep is afterward in the cool air, with the brilliant 
stars glimmering through the branches overhead. 
In the country where I was there was absolutely no 
danger from Indian horse-thieves, and practically 
none from white ones, for I felt pretty sure no one 
was anywhere within a good many miles of me, 
and none could have seen me come into the valley. 
Besides, in the cattle country stealing horses is a 
hazardous profession, as any man who is found en- 
gaged in it is at once, and very properly, strung 
up to the nearest tree, or shot if no trees are handy ; 
so very few people follow it, at least for any length 
of time, and a man's horses are generally safe. 

Near where we had halted for the night camp was 
a large prairie-dog town. Prairie-dogs are abundant 
all over the cattle country ; they are in shape like lit- 



226 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

tie woodchucks, and are the most noisy and inquisi- 
tive animals imaginable. They are never found 
singly, but always in towns of several hundred in- 
habitants ; and these towns are found in all kinds of 
places where the country is flat and treeless. Some- 
times they will be placed on the bottoms of the creeks 
or rivers, and again far out on the prairie or among 
the Bad Lands, a long distance from any water. 
Indeed, so dry are some of the localities in which 
they exist, that it is a marvel how they can live at 
all; yet they seem invariably plump and in good 
condition. They are exceedingly destructive to 
grass, eating away everything round their burrows, 
and thus each town is always extending at the bor- 
ders, while the holes in the middle are deserted ; in 
many districts they have become a perfect bane to 
the cattlemen, for the incoming of man has been the 
means of causing a great falling off in the ranks of 
their four-footed foes, and this main check to their 
increase being gone, they multiply at a rate that 
threatens to make them a serious pest in the future. 
They are among the few plains animals who are 
benefited instead of being injured by the presence 
of man ; and it is most diflicult to exterminate them 
or to keep their number in any way under, as they 
are prolific to a most extraordinary degree; the 
quantity of good feed they destroy is very great, and 
as they eat up the roots of the grass it is a long time 
before it grows again. Already in many districts 
the stockmen are seriously considering the best way 
in which to take steps against them. Prairie-dogs 



A Trip on the Prairie 227 

wherever they exist are sure to attract attention, all 
the more so because, unlike most other rodents, they 
are diurnal and not nocturnal, offering therein a 
curious case of parallelism to their fellow denizen 
of the dry plains, the antelope, which is also a crea- 
ture loving to be up and stirring in the bright day- 
light, unlike its relatives, the dusk-loving deer. 
They are very noisy, their shrill yelping resounding 
on all sides whenever a man rides through a town. 
None go far from their homes, always keeping close 
enough to be able to skulk into them at once ; and as 
soon as a foe appears they take refuge on the hillocks 
beside their burrows, yelping continuously, and ac- 
companying each yelp by a spasmodic jerking of the 
tail and body. When the man comes a little nearer 
they disappear inside and then thrust their heads out, 
for they are most inquisitive. Their burrows form 
one of the chief dangers to riding at full speed over 
the plains country ; hardly any man can do much rid- 
ing on the prairie for more than a year or two with- 
out coming to grief on more than one occasion by 
his horse putting its foot in a prairie-dog hole. A 
badger hole is even worse. When a horse gets his 
foot in such a hole, while going at full speed, he 
turns a complete somersault, and is lucky if he escape 
without a broken leg, while I have time and again 
known the rider to be severely injured. There are 
other smaller animals whose burrow^s sometimes 
cause a horseman to receive a sharp tumble. These 
are the pocket-gophers — queer creatures, shaped like 
moles and having the same subterranean habits, but 



228 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

with teeth Hke a rat's, and great pouches on the out- 
side of their jaws — whose long, rambHng tunnels 
cover the ground in certain places, though the ani- 
mals themselves are very rarely seen; and the little 
striped gophers and gray gophers, entirely different 
animals, more like ground squirrels. But the prairie- 
dog is always the main source of danger to the horse- 
man, as well as of mischief to the cattle-herder. 

Around the prairie-dog towns it is always well 
to keep a lookout for the smaller carnivora, espe- 
cially coyotes and badgers, as they are very fond of 
such neighborhoods, and almost always it is also a 
favorite resort for the larger kinds of hawks, which 
are so numerous throughout the cattle country. 
Rattlesnakes are quite plenty, living in the deserted 
holes, and the latter are also the homes of the little 
burrowing owls, which will often be seen standing 
at the opening, ready to run in as quick as any of 
the prairie-dogs if danger threatens. They have a 
funny habit of gravely bowing or posturing at the 
passerb}^ and stand up very erect on their legs. With 
the exception of this species, owls are rare in the 
cattle country. 

A prairie-dog is rather a difficult animal to get, 
as it stands so close to its burrow that a spasmodic 
kick, even if at the last gasp, sends the body inside, 
where it can not be recovered. The cowboys are al- 
ways practicing at them with their revolvers, and as 
they are pretty good shots, mortally wound a good 
many, but unless the force of the blow fairly knocks 
the prairie-dog away from the mouth of the burrow, 



A Trip on the Prairie 229 

it almost always manages to escape inside. But a 
good shot with the rifle can kill any number by ly- 
ing down quietly and waiting a few minutes until 
the dogs get a little distance from the mouths of 
their homes. 

Badgers are more commonly found round prairie- 
dog towns than anywhere else; and they get their 
chief food by digging up the prairie-dogs and go- 
phers with their strong forearms and long, stout 
claws. They are not often found wandering away 
from their homes in the daytime, but if so caught 
are easily run down and killed. A badger is a most 
desperate fighter, and an overmatch for a coyote, 
his hide being very thick and his form so squat and 
strong that it is hard to break his back or legs, while 
his sharp teeth grip like a steel trap. A very few 
seconds allow him to dig a hole in the ground, into 
which he can back all except his head; and when 
placed thus, with his rear and flanks protected, he 
can beat off a dog man}^ times his own size. A 
young badger one night came up round the ranch 
house, and began gnawing at some bones that had 
been left near the door. Hearing the noise one of 
my men took a lantern and went outside. The 
glare of the light seemed to make the badger stupid, 
for, after looking at the lantern a few moments, it 
coolly turned and went on eating the scraps of flesh 
on the bones, and was knocked on the head without 
attempting to escape. 

To come back to my trip. Early in the morning 
I was awakened by the shrill yelping of the prairie- 



230 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

dogs whose town was near me. The sun had not 
yet risen, and the air had the pecuHar chill it always 
takes on toward morning, while little wreaths of 
light mist rose from the pools. Getting tip and 
loosing Manitou to let him feed round where he 
wished and slake his thirst , I took the rifle, strolled 
up the creek valley a short distance, and turned off 
out on the prairie. Nothing was in sight in the way 
of game ; but overhead a skylark was singing, soar- 
ing up above me so high that I could not make out 
his form in the gray morning light. I listened for 
some time, and the music never ceased for a mo- 
ment, coming down clear, sweet, and tender from 
the air above. Soon the strains of another an- 
swered from a little distance off, and the two kept 
soaring and singing as long as I stayed to listen; 
and when I walked away I could still hear their notes 
behind me. In some ways the skylark is the sweet- 
est singer we have ; only certain of the thrushes rival 
it, but though the songs of the latter have perhaps 
even more melody, they are far from being as unin- 
terrupted and well sustained, being rather a succes- 
sion of broken bursts of music. 

The sun was just appearing when I walked back 
to the creek bottom. Coming slowly out of a patch 
of brushwood, was a doe, going down to drink ; her 
great, sensitive ears thrown forward as she peered 
anxiously and timidly round. She was very watch- 
ful, lifting her head and gazing about between every 
few mouthfuls. When she had drunk her fill she 
snatched a hasty mouthful or two of the wet grass, 



A Trip on the Prairie 231 

and then cantered back to the edge of the brush, 
when a Httle spotted fawn came out and joined 
her. The two stood together for a few moments, 
and then walked off into the cover. The Httle pond 
at which they had drunk was within fifty yards of 
my night bed ; and it had other tenants in the shape 
of a mallard duck, with a brood of little ducklings, 
balls of fuzzy yellow down, that bobbed ,off into the 
reeds like little corks as I walked by. 

Breaking camp is a simple operation for one man ; 
and but a few minutes after breakfast Manitou and 
I were off ; the embers of the fire having been extin- 
guished with the care that comes to be almost second 
nature with the cattleman, one of whose chief dreads 
is the prairie fire, that sometimes robs his stock of 
such an immense amount of feed. Very little game 
was seen during the morning, as I rode in an almost 
straight line over the hot, parched plains, the ground 
cracked and seamed by the heat, and the dull brown 
blades bending over as if the sun was too much even 
for them. The sweat drenched the horse even when 
we were walking; and long before noon we halted 
for rest by a bitter alkaline pool with border so steep 
and rotten that I had to bring water up to the horse 
in my hat; having taken some along in a canteen 
for my own use. But there was a steep bank near, 
overgrown with young trees, and thus giving good 
shade; and it was this that induced me to stop. 
When leaving this halting-place, I spied three fig- 
ures in the distance, loping toward me; they turned 
out to be cowboys, who had been out a couple of 



232 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

days looking up a band of strayed ponies, and as 
they had exhausted their supply of food, I gave them 
the antelope hams, trusting to shoot another for my 
own use. 

Nor was I disappointed. After leaving the cow- 
boys I headed the horse toward the more rolling 
country where the prairies begin to break off into 
the edges of the Bad Lands. Several bands of an- 
telope were seen, and I tried one unsuccessful stalk, 
not being able to come within rifle range; but to- 
ward evening, when only about a mile from a 
wooded creek on whose banks I intended to sleep, 
I came across a solitary buck, just as I was topping 
the ridge of the last divide. As I was keeping a 
sharp lookout at the time, I reined in the horse the 
instant the head of the antelope came in sight, and 
jumping off crept up till I could see his whole body, 
when I dropped on my knee and took steady aim. 
He was a long way off (three hundred yards by 
actual pacing), and not having made out exactly 
what we were he stood still, looking intently in our 
direction and broadside to us. I held well over his 
shoulder, and at the report he dropped like a shot, 
the ball having broken his neck. It was a very good 
shot; the best I ever made at antelope, of which 
game, as already said, I have killed but very few in- 
dividuals. Taking the hams and saddle I rode on 
down to the creek and again went into camp among 
timber. Thus on this trip I was never successful in 
outwitting antelope on the several occasions when 
I pitted my craft and skill against their wariness and 



A Trip on the Prairie 233 

keen senses, always either failing to get within range 
or else missing them ; but nevertheless I got two by 
taking advantage of the stupidity and curiosity 
which they occasionally show. 

The middle part of the days having proved so 
very hot, and as my store of biscuits was nearly gone, 
and as I knew, moreover, that the antelope meat 
would not keep over twenty-four hours, I decided 
to push back home next day ; and accordingly I broke 
camp at the first streak of dawn, and took Manitou 
back to the ranch at a smart lope. 

A solitary trip such as this was, through a com- 
paratively wild region in which game is still plenti- 
ful, always has great attraction for any man who 
cares for sport and for nature, and who is able to be 
his own companion, but the pleasure, after all, de- 
pends a good deal on the weather. To be sure, 
after a little experience in roughing it, the hardships 
seem a good deal less formidable than they formerly 
did, and a man becomes able to roll up in a wet 
blanket and sleep all night in a pelting rain without 
hurting himself — though he will shiver a good deal, 
and feel pretty numb and stiff in those chill and 
dreary hours just before dawn. But when a man^s 
clothes and bedding and rifle are all wet, no matter 
how philosophically he may bear it, it may be taken 
for granted that he does not enjoy it. So fair 
weather is a very vital and important element among 
those that go to make up the pleasure and success of 
such a trip. Luckily fair weather can be counted 
on with a good deal of certainty in late spring and 



234 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

throughout most of the summer and fall on the 
northern cattle plains. The storms that do take 
place, though very violent, do not last long. 

Every now and then, however, there will be in 
the fall a three days' storm in which it is almost 
impossible to travel, and then the best thing to be 
done is to lie up under any shelter that is at hand 
until it blows over. I remember one such camp 
which was made in the midst of the most singular 
and picturesque surroundings. It was toward the 
end of a long wagon trip that we had been taking, 
and all of the horses were tired by incessant work. 
We had come through country which was entirely 
new to us, passing nearly all day in a long flat prairie 
through which flowed a stream that we supposed to 
be either the Box Alder or the Little Beaver. In 
leaving this we had struck some heavy sand-hills, 
and while pulling the loaded wagon up them one of 
the team played out completely, and we had to take 
her out and put in one of the spare saddle-ponies, a 
tough little fellow. Night came on fast, and the 
sun was just setting when we crossed the final ridge 
and came in sight of as singular a bit of country as 
I have ever seen. The cowboys, as we afterward 
found, had christened the place "Medicine Buttes." 
In plains dialect, I may explain, ^'Medicine'' has been 
adopted from the Indians, among whom it means 
anything supernatural or very unusual. It is used 
in the sense of ''magic," or "out of the common." 

Over an irregular tract of gently rolling sandy 
hills, perhaps about three-quarters of a mile square. 



A Trip on the Prairie 235 

were scattered several hundred detached and isolated 
buttes or cliffs of sandstone, each butte from fifteen 
to fifty feet high, and from thirty to a couple of 
hundred feet across. Some of them rose as sharp 
peaks or ridges, or as connected chains, but much the 
greater number had flat tops like little table-lands. 
The sides were perfectly perpendicular, and were 
cut and channeled by the weather into the most 
extraordinary forms; caves, columns, battlements, 
spires, and flying buttresses were mingled in the 
strangest confusion. Many of the caves were worn 
clear through the buttes, and they were at every 
height in the sides, while ledges ran across the faces, 
and shoulders and columns jutted out from the cor- 
ners. On the tops and at the bases of most of the 
cliffs grew pine trees, some of considerable height, 
and the sand gave everything a clean, white look. 

Altogether it was as fantastically beautiful a place 
as I have ever seen: it seemed impossible that the 
hand of man should not have had something to do 
with its formation. There was a spring of clear cold 
water a few hundred yards off, with good feed for 
the horses round it; and we made our camp at the 
foot of one of the largest buttes, building a roaring 
pine-log fire in an angle in the face of the cliff, while 
our beds were under the pine trees. It was the time 
of the full moon, and the early part of the night 
was clear. The flame of the fire leaped up the side 
of the cliff, the red light bringing out into lurid and 
ghastly relief the bold corners and strange-looking 
escarpments of the rock, while against it the stiff 



236 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

limbs of the pines stood out like rigid bars of iron. 
Walking off out of sight of the circle of fire light, 
among the tall crags, the place seemed almost as 
unreal as if we had been in fair3dand. The flood of 
clear moonlight turned the white faces of the cliffs 
and the grounds between them into shining silver, 
against which the pines showed dark and sombre, 
while the intensely black shadows of the buttes took 
on forms that were grimly fantastic. Every cave 
or cranny in the crags looked so black that it seemed 
almost to be thrown out from the surface, and when 
the branches of the trees moved, the bright moon- 
light danced on the ground as if it were a sheet of 
molten metal. Neither in shape nor in color did our 
surroundings seem to belong to the dull gray world 
through which we had been traveling all day. 

But by next morning everything had changed. A 
furious gale of wind was blowing, and wx were 
shrouded in a dense, drizzling mist, through which 
at times the rain drove in level sheets. Now and 
then the fog would blow away, and then would 
come on thicker than ever; and when it began to 
clear off a steady rain took its place, and the wind 
increased to a regular hurricane. With its canvas 
top on, the wagon would certainly have been blown 
over if on open ground, and it was impossible to 
start or keep a fire except under the sheltered lee 
of the cliff. Moreover, the wind kept shifting, and 
we had to shift, too, as fast as ever it started to blow 
from a new quarter; and thus in the course of the 
twenty-four hours we made a complete circle of the 



A Trip on the Prairie 237 

cliff at whose base we were. Our blankets got wet 
during the night; and they got no drier dur- 
ing the day; and the second night, as we slept 
on them they got steadily damper. Our provisions 
were pretty nearly out, and so, with little to eat and 
less to do, wet and uncomfortable, we cowered over 
the sputtering fire, and whiled the long day aw^ay as 
best we might with our own thoughts; fortunately 
we had all learned that no matter how bad things 
are, grumbling and bad temper can always be de- 
pended upon to make them worse, and so bore our 
ill-fortune, if not with stoical indifference, at least 
in perfect quiet. Next day the storm still continued, 
but the fog was gone and the wind somewhat easier ; 
and we spent the whole day looking up the horses, 
w^hich had drifted a long distance before the storm ; 
nor was it till the morning of the third day that we 
left our beautiful but, as events had made it, uncom- 
fortable camping-ground. 

In midsummer the storms are rarely of long du- 
ration, but are very severe while they last. I re- 
member well one day when I was caught in such a 
storm. I had gone some twenty-five miles from the 
ranch to see the round-up, which had reached what 
is known as the Oxbow of the Little Missouri, where 
the river makes a great loop round a flat, grassy 
bottom, on which the cattle herd was gathered. I 
stayed, seeing the cattle cut out and the calves 
branded, until after dinner; for it was at the time 
of the year when the days were longest. 

At last the work was ended, and I started home 



238 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

in the twilight. The horse splashed across the shal- 
low ford, and then spent half an hour in climbing 
up through the rugged side hills, till we reached 
the top of the first great plateau that had to be 
crossed. As soon as I got on it I put in the spurs 
and started off at a gallop. In the dusk the brown 
level land stretched out in formless expanse ahead of 
me, unrelieved, except by the bleached white of a 
buffalo's skull, whose outlines glimmered indistinctly 
to one side of the course I was riding. On my left 
the sun had set behind a row of jagged buttes, that 
loomed up in sharp relief against the western sky; 
above them it had left a bar of yellow light, which 
only made more intense the darkness of the sur- 
rounding heavens. In the quarter toward which I 
was heading there had gathered a lowering mass of 
black storm-clouds, lit up by the incessant play of 
the lightning. The wind had totally died away, and 
the death-like stillness was only broken by the con- 
tinuous, measured beat of the horse's hoofs as he 
galloped over the plain, and at times by the muttered 
roll of the distant thunder. 

Without slacking pace I crossed the plateau, and 
as I came to the other edge the storm burst in sheets 
and torrents of water. In five minutes I was 
drenched through, and to guide myself had to take 
advantage of the continual flashes of lightning ; and 
I was right glad, half an hour afterward, to stop and 
take shelter in the log hut of a couple of cowboys, 
where I could get dry and warm. 



CHAPTER II 

A TRIP AFTER MOUNTAIN SHEEP 

LATE one fall a spell of bitter weather set in, 
and lasted on through the early part of the win- 
ter. For many days together the cold was fierce 
in its intensity; and the wheels of the ranch-wagon, 
when we drove out for a load of firewood, creaked 
and sang as they ground through the powdery snow 
that lay light on the ground. At night in the clear 
sky the stars seemed to snap and glitter; and for 
weeks of cloudless white weather the sun shone 
down on a land from which his beams glanced and 
ghstened as if it had been the surface of a mirror, 
till the glare hurt the eyes that looked upon it. In 
the still nights we could hear the trees crack and jar 
from the strain of the biting frost ; and in its wind- 
ing bed the river lay fixed like a huge bent bar of 
blue steel. 

We had been told that a small band of big-horn 
was hanging around some veiy steep and broken 
country about twenty-five miles from the ranch- 
house. I had been out after them once alone, but 
had failed to find even their tracks, and had made up 
my mind that in order to hunt them it would be 
necessary to make a three or four days' trip, taking 
along the buckboard with our bedding and eatables. 

(239) 



240 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

The trip had been delayed owing to two of my men, 
who had been sent out to buy ponies, coming in with 
a bunch of fifty, for the most part hardly broken. 
Some of them were meant for the use of the lower 
ranch, and the men from the latter had come up to 
get them. At night the ponies were let loose, 
and each day they were gathered together into 
the horse corral and broken as well as we could 
break them in such weather. It was my intention 
not to start on the hunt until the ponies were sep- 
arated into the two bands, and the men from the 
lower ranch (the Elkhorn) had gone off with theirs. 
Then one of the cowboys was to take the buckboard 
up to a deserted hunter's hut, which lay on a great 
bend of the river nearby the ground over which the 
big-horn were said to wander, while my foreman, 
Merrifield, and myself would take saddle-horses, 
and each day ride to the country through which we 
intended to hunt, returning at night to the buck- 
board and hut. But we started a little sooner than 
we had intended, owing to a funny mistake made 
by one of the cowbo3^s. 

The sun did not rise until nearly eight, but each 
morning we breakfasted at five, and the men were 
then sent out on the horses which had been kept in 
overnight, to find and drive home the pony band; 
of course they started in perfect darkness, except for 
the starlight. On the last day of our proposed stay 
the men had come in with the ponies before sunrise ; 
and, leaving the latter in the corral, they entered 
the house and crowded round the fire, stamping and 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 241 

beating their numbed hands together. In the midst 
of the confusion word was brought by one of the 
cowbo}:>, that while hunting for the horses he had 
seen two bears go down into a wash-out; and he 
told us that he could bring us right to the place 
wdiere he had seen them, for as soon as he left it he 
had come in at speed on his swift, iron-gray horse — 
a vicious, clean-limbed devil, with muscles like 
bundles of tense wire ; the cold had made the brute 
savage, and it had been punished with the cruel curb 
bit until long, bloody icicles hung from its lips. 

At once Merrifield and I mounted in hot haste and 
rode off with the bringer of good tidings, leaving 
hasty instructions where we were to be joined by the 
buckboard. The sun was still just below the hori- 
zon as we started, wrapped warmly in our fur coats 
and with our caps drawn down over our ears to keep 
out the cold. The cattle were standing in the 
thickets and sheltered ravines, huddled together 
with their heads down, the frost lying on their backs 
and the icicles hanging from, their muzzles; they 
stared at us as we rode along, but were too cold to 
move a hand's breadth out of our way ; indeed it is 
a marvel how they survive the winter at all. Our 
course at first lay up a long valley, cut up by cattle 
trails ; then we came out, just as the sun had risen, 
upon the rounded, gently sloping highlands, thickly 
clad with the short nutritious grass, which curls on 
the stalk into good hay, and on which the cattle 
feed during winter. We galloped rapidly over the 
hills, our blood gradually warming up from the 

K Vol. IV. 



242 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

motion ; and soon came to the long wash-out, cutting 
down Hke a miniature canyon for a space of two 
or three miles through the bottom of a valley, into 
which the cowboy said he had seen the bears go. 
One of us took one side and one the other, and we 
rode along up wind, but neither the bears nor any 
traces of them could we see; at last, half a mile 
ahead of us, two dark objects suddenly emerged 
from the wash-out, and came out on the plain. For 
a second we thought they were the quarry ; then we 
saw that they were merely a couple of dark-colored 
ponies. The cowboy's chapfallen face was a study; 
he had seen, in the dim light, the two ponies going 
down with their heads held near the ground, and 
had mistaken them for bears (by no means the un- 
natural mistake that it seems ; I have known an ex- 
perienced hunter fire twice at a black calf in the late 
evening, thinking it was a bear). He knew only 
too well the merciless chaff to which he would be 
henceforth exposed; and a foretaste of which he at 
once received from my companion. The ponies had 
strayed from the main herd, and the cowboy was 
sent back to drive them to the home corral, while 
Merrifield and myself continued our hunt. 

We had all day before us, and but twenty miles 
or so to cover before reaching the hut where the 
buckboard was to meet us; but the course we in- 
tended to take was through country so rough that 
no Eastern horse could cross it, and even the hardy 
Western hunting-ponies, who climb like goats, 
would have difficulty in keeping their feet. Our 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 243 

route lay through the heart of the Bad Lands, but 
of course the country was not equally rough in all 
parts. There were tracts of varying size, each cov- 
ered with a tangled mass of chains and peaks, the 
buttes in places reaching a height that would in the 
East entitle them to be called mountains. Every 
such tract was riven in all directions by deep chasms 
and narrow ravines, whose sides sometimes rolled 
off in gentle slopes, but far more often rose as sheer 
cliffs, with narrow ledges along their fronts. A 
sparse growth of grass covered certain portions of 
these lands, and on some of the steep hillsides, or in 
the canyons were scanty groves of coniferous ever- 
greens, so stunted by the thin soil and bleak weather 
that many of them were bushes rather than trees. 
Most of the peaks and ridges, and many of the val- 
leys, were entirely bare of vegetation, and these had 
been cut by wind and water into the strangest and 
most fantastic shapes. Indeed it is difficult, in look- 
ing at such formations, to get rid of the feeling 
that their curiously twisted and contorted forms are 
due to some vast volcanic upheavals or other subter- 
ranean forces; yet they are merely caused by the 
action of the various weathering forces of the dry 
climate on the different strata of sandstones, clays, 
and marls. Isolated columns shoot up into the air, 
bearing on their summits flat rocks like tables; 
square buttes tower high above surrounding depres- 
sions, which are so cut up by twisting gullies and 
low ridges as to be almost impassable; shelving 
masses of sandstone jut out over the sides of the 



244 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

cliffs ; some of the ridges, with perfectly perpendicu- 
lar sides, are so worn away that they stand up like 
gigantic knife blades; and gulches, wash-outs, and 
canyons dig out the sides of each butte, while be- 
tween them are thrust out long spurs, with sharp 
ragged tops. All such patches of barren, broken 
ground, where the feed seems too scant to support 
any large animal, are the favorite haunts of the big- 
horn, though it also wanders far into the somewhat 
gentler and more fertile, but still very rugged, do- 
main of the black-tail deer. 

Between all such masses of rough country lay 
wide, grassy plateaus or long stretches of bare 
plain, covered with pebbly shingle. We loped across 
all these open places ; and when we came to a reach 
of broken country would leave our horses and hunt 
through it on foot. Except where the wind had 
blown it off, there was a thin coat of snow over 
everything, and the icy edges and sides of the cliffs 
gave only slippery and uncertain foothold, so as to 
render the climbing doubly toilsome. Hunting the 
big-horn is at all times the hardest and most diffi- 
cult kind of sport, and is equally trying to both wind 
and muscle; and for that very reason the big-horn 
ranks highest among all the species of game that 
are killed by still-hunting, and its chase constitutes 
the noblest form of sport with the rifle, always ex- 
cepting, of course, those kinds of hunting where the 
quarry is itself dangerous to attack. Climbing kept 
us warm in spite of the bitter weather ; we only wore 
our fur coats and shaps while on horseback, leaving 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 245 

them where we left the horses, and doing our still- 
hunting in buckskin shirts, fur caps, and stout shoes. 

Big-horn, more commonly known as mountain 
sheep, are extremely wary and cautious animals, and 
are plentiful in but few places. This is rather sur- 
prising, for they seem to be fairly prolific (although 
not as much so as deer and antelope), and com- 
paratively few are killed by the hunters; indeed, 
much fewer are shot than of any other kind of West- 
ern game in proportion to their numbers. They 
hold out in a place long after the elk and buffalo 
have been exterminated, and for many years after 
both of these have become things of the past the 
big-horn will still exist to afford sport to the man 
who is a hardy mountaineer and skilful with the 
rifle. For it is the only kind of game on whose 
haunts cattle do not trespass. Good buffalo or elk 
pasture is sure to be also good pasture for steers and 
cows; and in summer the herds of the ranchman 
wander far into the prairies of the antelope, while 
in winter their chosen and favorite resorts are those 
of which the black-tail is equally fond. Thus, the 
cattlemen are almost as much foes of these kinds of 
game as are the hunters, but neither cattle nor cow- 
boys penetrate into the sterile and rocky wastes 
where the big-horn is found. And it is too wary 
game, and the labor of following it is too great, for 
it ever to be much persecuted by the skin or market 
hunters. 

In size the big-horn comes next to buffalo and 
elk, averaging larger than the black-tail deer, while 



246 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

an old ram will sometimes be almost as heavy as a 
small cow elk. In his movements he is not light 
and graceful like the prong-horn and other ante- 
lopes, his marvelous agility seeming rather to pro- 
ceed from sturdy strength and wonderful command 
over iron sinews and muscles. The huge horns are 
carried proudly erect by the massive neck; every 
motion of the body is made with perfect poise; and 
there seems to be no ground so difficult that the 
big-horn can not cross it. There is probably no ani- 
mal in the world his superior in climbing; and his 
only equals are the other species of mountain sheep 
and the ibexes. No matter how sheer the cliff, if 
there are ever so tiny cracks or breaks in the sur- 
face, the big-horn will bound up or down it with 
wonderful ease and seeming absence of effort. The 
perpendicular bounds it can make are truly startling 
— in strong contrast with its distant relative, the 
prong-horn, which can leap almost any level jump, 
but seems unable to clear the smallest height. In de^ 
scending a sheer wall of rock the big-horn holds all 
four feet together and goes down in long jumps, 
bounding off the surface almost like a rubber ball 
every time he strikes it. The way that one will 
vanish over the roughest and most broken ground is 
a perpetual surprise to any one that has hunted 
them ; and the ewes are quite as skilful as the rams, 
while even the very young lambs seem almost as 
well able to climb, and certainly follow wherever 
their elders lead. Time and again one will rush over 
a cliff to what appears certain death, and will gallop 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 247 

away from the bottom unharmed. Their perfect 
self-confidence seems to be justified, however, for 
they never sHp or make a misstep, even on the nar- 
rowest ledges when covered w^ith ice and snow\ 
And all their marvelous jumping and climbing is 
done with an apparent ease that renders it the more 
wonderful. Rapid though the movements of one 
are they are made without any of the nervous hurry 
so characteristic of the antelopes and smialler deer; 
the onlooker is really as much impressed with the 
animal's sinewy power and self-command as with 
his agility. His strength and his self-reliance seem 
to fit him above all other kinds of game to battle 
with the elements and with his brute foes; he does 
not dare to have the rough ways of his life made 
smooth; were his choice free his abode would still 
be the vast and lonely wilderness in which he is 
found. To him the barren wastes of the Bad Lands 
offer a most attractive home; yet to other living 
creatures they are at all times as grimly desolate and 
forbidding as any spot on earth can be; at all sect- 
sons they seem hostile to every form of life. In the 
raging heat of summer the dry earth cracks and 
crumbles, and the sultry, lifeless air sways and 
trembles as if above a furnace. Through the high, 
clear atmosphere, the intense sunlight casts unnat- 
urally deep shadows; and where there are no shad- 
ows, brings out in glaring relief the weird, fantastic 
shapes and bizarre coloring of the buttes. In win- 
ter snow and ice coat the thin crests and sharp sides 
of the cliffs, and increase their look of savage wild- 



248 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

ness; the cold turns the ground into ringing iron; 
and the icy blasts sweep through the clefts and over 
the ridges with an angry fury even more terrible 
than is the intense, death-like, silent heat of mid- 
summer. But the mountain ram is alike proudly in- 
different to the hottest summer sun and to the wild- 
est winter storm. 

The lambs are brought forth late in May or early 
in June. Like the antelope, the dam soon leads her 
kids to join the herd, which may range in size from a 
dozen to four or five times as many individuals., gen- 
erally approaching nearer the former number. The 
ewes, lambs, and yearling or two-year-old rams go 
together. The young but full-grown rams keep in 
small parties of three or four, while the old fellows, 
with monstrous heads, keep by themselves, except 
when they join the ewes in the rutting season. At 
this time they wage savage war with each other. 
The horns of the old rams are always battered and 
scarred from these butting contests — which appear- 
ance, by the way, has given rise to the ridiculous 
idea that they are in the habit of jumping over 
precipices and landing on their heads. 

Occasionally the big-horn come down into the 
valleys or along the grassy slopes to feed, but this is 
not often, and in such cases every member of the 
band is always keeping the sharpest lookout, and at 
the slightest alarm they beat a retreat to their broken 
fastnesses. At night-time or in the early morning 
they come down to drink at the small pools or 
springs, but move off the instant they have satisfied 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 249 

their thirst. As a rule, they spend their time among 
the rocks and rough ground, and it is in these places 
that they must be hunted. They cover a good deal 
of ground when feeding, for the feed is scanty in 
their haunts, and they walk quite rapidly along the 
ledges or peaks, by preference high up, as they 
graze or browse. When through feeding they al- 
ways choose as a resting-place some point from 
which they can command a view over all the sur- 
rounding territory. An old ram is peculiarly wary. 
The crest of a ridge or the top of a peak is a fa- 
vorite resting-bed ; but even more often they choose 
some ledge, high up, but just below the crest, or 
lie on a shelf of rock that juts out from where a 
ridge ends, and thus enables them to view the 
country on three sides of them. In color they har- 
monize curiously with the grayish or yellowish 
brown of the ground on which they are found, and 
it is often very difficult to make them out when lying 
motionless on a ledge of rock. Time and again 
they will be mistaken for bowlders, and, on the 
other hand, I have more than once stalked up to 
masses of sandstone that I have mistaken for sheep. 
When lying down the big-horn can thus scan 
everything below it ; and both while feeding and rest- 
ing it invariably keeps the sharpest possible look-out 
for all danger from beneath, and this trait makes 
it needful for the hunter to always keep on the 
highest ground and try to come on it from above. 
For protection against danger it relies on ears, eyes, 
and nose alike. The slightest sound startles it and 



250 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

puts it on its guard, while if it sees or smells any- 
thing which it deems may bode danger it is off like 
a flash. It is as wary and quick-sighted as the 
antelope, and its senses are as keen as are those 
of the elk, while it is not afflicted by the occasional 
stupidity or heedless recklessness of these two 
animals, nor by the intense curiosity of the black- 
tail, and it has all the white-tail's sound common- 
sense, coupled with a much shyer nature and much 
sharper faculties, so that it is more difficult to kill 
than are any of these creatures. And the climbing 
is rendered all the more tiresome by the traits above 
spoken of, which make it necessary for the hunter 
to keep above it. The first thing to do is to clamber 
up to the top of a ridge, and after that to keep on 
the highest crests. 

At all times, and with all game, the still-hunter 
should be quiet, and should observe caution, but 
when after mountain sheep he must be absolutely 
noiseless and must not neglect a single chance. He 
must be careful not to step on a loose stone or to 
start any crumbling earth; he must always hunt 
up or across wind, and he must take advantage 
of every crag or bowlder to shelter himself from 
the gaze of his watchful quarry. While keeping 
up as high as possible, he should not go on the very 
summit, as that brings him out in too sharp relief 
against the sky. And all the while he will be cross- 
ing land where he will need to pay good heed to 
his own footing or else run the risk of breaking his 
neck. 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 251 

As far as lay in us, on our first day's hunt we 
paid proper heed to all the rules of hunting-craft; 
but without success. Up the slipper}^ ice-covered 
buttes w^e clambered, clinging to the rocks, and 
slowly working our way across the faces of the 
cliffs, or cautiously creeping along the narrow 
ledges, peering over ever}^ crest long and carefully, 
and from the peaks scanning the ground all about 
with the field-glasses. But we saw no sheep, and 
but little sign of them. Still we did see some sign, 
and lost a shot, either through bad luck or bad 
management. This was while going through a 
cluster of broken buttes, whose peaks rose up like 
sharp cones. On reaching the top of one at the 
leeward end, we worked cautiously up the side, 
seeing nothing, to the other end, and then down 
along the middle. When about half-way back we 
came across the fresh footprints of a ewe or year- 
ling ram in a little patch of snow. On tracing them 
back we found that it had been lying down on the 
other side of a small bluff, within a hundred yards 
of where we had passed, and must have either got 
our wind, or else have heard us make some noise. 
At any rate it had gone off, and though we followed 
its tracks a little in the snow, they soon got on the 
bare, frozen ground and we lost them. 

After that we saw nothing. The cold, as the day 
wore on, seemed gradually to chill us through and 
through ; our hands and feet became numb, and our 
ears tingled under our fur caps. We hunted care- 
fully through two or three masses of jagged buttes 



252 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

which seemed most likely places for the game we 
w^ere after, taking a couple of hours to each place; 
and then, as the afternoon was beginning to wane, 
mounted our shivering horses for good, and pushed 
toward the bend of the river where we were to meet 
the buckboard. Our course lay across a succession 
of bleak, wind-swept plateaus, broken by deep and 
narrow pine-clad gorges. We galloped swiftly over 
the plateaus, where the footing was good and the 
going easy, for the gales had driven the feathery 
snow off the withered brown grass; but getting on 
and off these table-lands was often a real labor, their 
sides were so sheer. The horses plunged and 
scrambled after us as we led them up; while in 
descending they would sit back on their haunches 
and half-walk, half-slide, down the steep inclines. 
Indeed, one or two of the latter were so very 
straight that the horses would not face them, 
and we had to turn them round and back them 
over the edge, and then let all go down with a 
rush. At any rate it warmed our blood to keep out 
of the way of the hoofs. On one of the plateaus 
1 got a very long shot at a black-tail, which I missed. 
Finally we struck the head of a long, winding 
valley with a smooth bottom, and after cantering 
down it four or five miles, came to the river, just 
after the cold, pale-red sun had sunk behind the 
line of hills ahead of us. Our horses were sharp 
shod, and crossed the ice without difficulty ; and in a 
grove of leafless cottonwoods on the opposite 
side, we found the hut for which we had been mak- 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 253 

ing, the cowboy already inside with the fire started. 
Throughout the night the temperature sank lower 
and lower, and it was impossible to keep the crazy 
old hut anywhere near freezing-point; the wind 
whistled through the chinks and crannies of the logs, 
and, after a short and by no means elaborate supper, 
we were glad to cow^er down with our great fur 
coats still on, under the pile of buffalo robes and 
bear skins. My sleeping-bag came in very handily, 
and kept me as w^arm as possible, in spite of the bit- 
ter frost. 

We were up and had taken breakfast next morn- 
ing by the time the first streak of dawn had dimmed 
the brilliancy of the stars, and immediately after- 
ward strode off on foot, as we had been hampered 
by the horses on the day before. We walked brisk-, 
ly across the plain until, by the time it was light 
enough to see to shoot, we came to the foot of a 
great hill, known as Middle Butte, a huge, isolated 
mass of rock, several miles in length, and with high 
sides, very steep toward the nearly level summit; 
it would be deemed a mountain of no inconsiderable 
size in the East. We hunted carefully through the 
outlying foothills and projecting spurs around its 
base, without result, finding but a few tracks, and 
those very old ones, and then toiled up to the top, 
which, though narrow in parts, in others widened 
out into plateaus half a mile square. Having made 
a complete circuit of the top, peering over the edge 
and closely examining the flanks of the butte with 
the field-glass, without having seen anything, we 



254 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

slid down the other side and took off through a 
streak of very rugged but low country. This day, 
though the weather had grown even colder, we did 
not feel it, for we walked all the while with a quick 
pace, and the climbing was very hard work. The 
shoulders and ledges of the cliffs had become round 
and slippery with the ice, and it was no easy task 
to move up and along them, clutching the gun in 
one hand, and grasping each little projection with 
the other. Climbing through the Bad Lands is just 
like any other kind of mountaineering, except that 
the precipices and chasms are much lower; but this 
really makes very little difference when the ground 
is frozen as solid as iron, for it would be almost as 
unpleasant to fall fifty feet as to fall two hundred, 
and the result to the person who tried it would be 
very much the same in each case. 

Hunting for a day or two without finding game, 
where the work is severe and toilsome, is a good test 
of the sportsman's staying qualities; the man who 
at the end of the time is proceeding with as much 
caution and determination as at the beginning, has 
got the right stuff in him. On this day I got rather 
tired, and committed one of the blunders of which 
no hunter ought ever to be guilty ; that is, I fired at 
small game while on ground where I might expect 
large. We had seen two or three jack-rabbits scud- 
ding off like noiseless white shadows, and finally 
came upon some sharp-tail prairie fowl in a hollow. 
One was quite near me, perched on a bush, and with 
its neck stretched up offered a beautiful mark; I 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 2^^ 

could not resist it, so knelt and fired. At the report 
of the rifle (it was a miss, by the by) a head sud- 
denly appeared over a ridge some six hundred yards 
in front — too far off for us to make out what kind 
of animal it belonged to, — looked fixedly at us, and 
then disappeared. We feared it might be a moun- 
tain sheep, and that my unlucky shot had deprived 
us of the chance of a try at it; but on hurrying up 
to the place where it had been we were relieved to 
find that the tracks were only those of a black-tail. 
After this lesson we proceeded in silence, making 
a long circle through the roughest kind of country. 
When on the way back to camp, where the buttes 
rose highest and steepest, we came upon fresh 
tracks, but as it was then late in the afternoon, did 
not try to follow them that day. When near the hut 
I killed a sharp-tail for supper, making rather a neat 
shot, the bird being eighty yards off. The night was 
even colder than the preceding one, and all signs 
told us that we would soon have a change for the 
worse in the weather, which made me doubly anx- 
ious to get a sheep before the storm struck us. We 
determined that next morning we would take the 
horses and make a quick push for the chain of 
high buttes where we had seen the fresh tracks, and 
hunt them through with thorough care. 

We started in the cold gray of the next morning 
and pricked rapidly off over the frozen plain, col- 
umns of white steam rising from the nostrils of the 
galloping horses. When we reached the foot of the 
hills where we intended to hunt, and had tethered 



256 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

the horses, the sun had already risen, but it was evi- 
dent that the clear weather of a fortnight past was 
over. The air was thick and hazy, and away off in 
the northwest a towering mass of grayish white 
clouds looked like a weather-breeder; everything 
boded a storm at no distant date. The country over 
which we now hunted was wilder and more moun- 
tainous than any we had yet struck. High, sharp 
peaks and ridges broke off abruptly into narrow 
gorges and deep ravines; they were bare of all but 
the scantiest vegetation, save on some of the shel- 
tered sides where grew groves of dark pines, now 
laden down with feathery snow. The climbing was 
as hard as ever. At first we went straight up the 
side of the tallest peak, and then along the knife- 
like ridge which joined it with the next. The ice 
made the footing very slippery as we stepped along 
the ledges or crawled round the jutting shoulders, 
and we had to look carefully for our footholds; 
while in the cold, thin air every quick burst we made 
up a steep hill caused us to pant for breath. We 
had gone but a little way before we saw fresh signs 
of the animals we were after, but it was some time 
before we came upon the quarry itself. 

We left the high ground and descending into a 
narrow chasm walked along its bottom, which was 
but a couple of feet wide, while the sides rose up 
from it at an acute angle. After following this 
for a few hundred yards, we turned a sharp corner, 
and shortly afterward our eyes were caught by 
some grains of fresh earth lying on the snow in 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 257 

front of our feet. On the sides, some feet above 
our heads, were marks in the snow which a mo- 
ment's glance showed us had been made by a couple 
of mountain sheep that had come down one side of 
the gorge and had leaped across to the other, their 
sharp toes going through the thin snow and dis- 
placing the earth that had fallen to the bottom. 
The tracks had evidently been made just before we 
rounded the comer, and as we had been advancing 
noiselessly on the snow with the wind in our favor, 
we knew that the animals could have no suspicion 
of our presence. They had gone up the cliff on our 
right, but as that on our left was much lower, and 
running for some distance parallel to the other, we 
concluded that by running along its top we would 
be most certain to get a good shot. Clambering 
instantly up the steep side, digging my hands and 
feet into the loose snow, and grasping at every little 
rock or frozen projection, I reached the top; and 
then ran forward along the ridge a few paces, 
crouching behind the masses of queerly-shaped 
sandstone; and saw, about ninety yards off across 
the ravine, a couple of mountain rams. The one 
with the largest horns was broadside toward me, 
his sturdy, massive form outlined clearly against 
the sky, as he stood on the crest of the ridge. I 
dropped on my knee, raising the rifle as I did so; 
for a second he did not quite make me out, turning 
his head half round to look. I held the sight fairly 
on the point just behind his shoulder and pulled the 
trigger. At the report he staggered and pitched 



258 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

forward, but recovered himself and crossed over the 
ridge out of sight. We jumped and sHd down into 
the ravine again, and clambered up the opposite 
side as fast as our lungs and the slippery ice would 
let us ; then taking the trail of the wounded ram we 
trotted along it. We had not far to go ; for, as I ex- 
pected, we found him lying on his side a couple of 
hundred yards beyond the ridge, his eyes already 
glazed in death. The bullet had gone in behind the 
shoulder and ranged clean through his body cross- 
wise, going a little forward; no animal less tough 
than a mountain ram could have gone any distance 
at all with such a wound. He had most obhgingly 
run round to a part of the hill where we could bring 
up one of the horses without very much difficulty. 
Accordingly I brought up old Manitou, who can 
carry anything and has no fear, and the big-horn 
was soon strapped across his back. It was a fine 
ram, with perfectly shaped but not very large horns. 

The other ram, two years old, with small horns, 
had bounded over the ridge before I could get a 
shot at him; we followed his trail for half a mile, 
but as he showed no signs of halting and we were 
anxious to get home we then gave up the pursuit. 

It was still early in the day, and we made up our 
minds to push back for the home ranch, as we did 
not wish to be caught out in a long storm. The 
lowering sky was already overcast by a mass of 
leaden-gray clouds; and it was evident that we had 
no time to lose. In a little over an hour we w^ere 
back at the log camp, where the ram was shifted 



A Trip After Mountain Sheep 259 

from Manitou's back to the buckboard. A very 
few minutes sufficed to pack up our bedding and 
provisions, and we started home. Merrifield and I 
rode on ahead, not sparing the horses; but before 
we got home the storm had burst, and a furious 
blizzard blew in our teeth as we galloped along the 
last mile of the river bottom, before coming to the 
home ranch house ; and as we warmed our stiffened 
limbs before the log fire, I congratulated myself 
upon the successful outcome of what I knew would 
be the last hunting trip I should take during that 
season. 

The death of this ram was accomplished without 
calling for any very good shooting on our part. He 
was standing still, less than a hundred yards off, 
when the shot was fired; and we came across him 
so close merely by accident. Still, we fairly de- 
served our luck, for we had hunted with the most 
patient and painstaking care from dawn till night- 
fall for the better part of three days, spending most 
of the time in climbing at a smart rate of speed up 
sheer cliffs and over rough and slippery ground. 
Still-hunting the big-horn is always a toilsome and 
laborious task, and the very bitter weather during 
which we had been out had not lessened the diffi- 
culty of the work, though in the cold it was much 
less exhausting than it would have been to have 
hunted across the same ground in summer. No 
other kind of hunting does as much to bring out 
the good qualities, both moral and physical, of the 
sportsmen who follow it. If a man keeps at it, it 



26o Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

is bound to make him both hardy and resolute; to 
strengthen his muscles and fill out his lungs. 

Mountain mutton is in the fall the most delicious 
eating furnished by any game animal. Nothing 
else compares with it for juiciness, tenderness, and 
flavor ; but at all other times of the year it is tough, 
stringy, and worthless. 



CHAPTER III 

THE LORDLY BUFFALO 

GONE forever are the mighty herds of the 
lordly buffalo. A few solitary individuals 
and small bands are still to be found scattered here 
and there in the wilder parts of the plains; and 
though most of these will be very soon destroyed, 
others will for some years fight off their doom and 
lead a precarious existence either in remote and 
almost desert portions of the country near the Mexi- 
can frontier, or else in the wildest and most inac- 
cessible fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains; but 
the great herds, that for the first three quarters of 
this century formed the distinguishing and charac- 
teristic feature of the Western plains, have vanished 
forever. 

It is only about a hundred years ago that the 
white man, in his march westward, first encroached 
upon the lands of the buffalo, for these animals 
had never penetrated in any number to the Appala- 
chian chain of mountains. Indeed, it was after the 
beginning of the century before the inroads of the 
whites upon them grew at all serious. Then, though 
constantly driven westward, the diminution in their 
territory, if sure, was at least slow, although grow- 
ing progressively more rapid. Less than a score of 

(261) 



262 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

years ago the great herds, containing many mil- 
lions of individuals, ranged over a vast expanse of 
country that stretched in an unbroken line from 
near Mexico to far into British America ; in fact, 
over almost all the plains that are now known as 
the cattle region. But since that time their destruc- 
tion has gone on with appalling rapidity and 
thoroughness; and the main factors in bringing it 
about have been the railroads, which carried hordes 
of hunters into the land and gave them means to 
transport their spoils to market. Not quite twenty 
years since, the range was broken in two, and the 
buffalo herds in the middle slaughtered or thrust 
aside; and thus there resulted two ranges, the 
northern and the southern. The latter was the 
larger, but being more open to the hunters, was the 
sooner to be depopulated; and the last of the great 
southern herds was destroyed in 1878, though scat- 
tered bands escaped and wandered into the desolate 
wastes to the southwest. Meanwhile equally sav- 
age war was waged on the northern herds, and five 
years later the last of these was also destroyed or 
broken up. The bulk of this slaughter was done 
in the dozen years from 1872 to 1883; never before 
in all history were so many large wild animals of 
one species slain in so short a space of time. 

The extermination of the buffalo has been a veri- 
table tragedy of the animal world. Other races of 
animals have been destroyed within historic times, 
but these have been species of small size, local dis- 
tribution, and limited numbers, usually found in 



The Lordly Buffalo 263 

some particular island or group of islands ; while the 
huge buffalo, in countless myriads, ranged over the 
greater part of a continent. Its nearest relative, 
the Old World aurochs, formerly found all through 
the forests of Europe, is almost as near the verge 
of extinction, but with the latter the process has 
been slow, and has extended over a period of a 
thousand years, instead of being compressed into a 
dozen. The destruction of the various larger spe- 
cies of South African game is much more local, 
and is proceeding at a much slower rate. It may 
truthfully be said that the sudden and complete 
extermination of the vast herds of the buffalo is 
without a parallel in historic times. 

No sight is more common on the plains than that 
of a bleached buffalo skull ; and their countless num- 
bers attest the abundance of the animal at a time 
not so very long past. On these portions where the 
herds made their last stand, the carcasses, dried in 
the clear, high air, or the mouldering skeletons, 
abound. Last year, in crossing the country around 
the heads of the Big Sandy, OTallon Creek, Little 
Beaver, and Box Alder, these skeletons or dried 
carcasses were in sight from every hillock, often 
lying over the ground so thickly that several score 
could be seen at once. A ranchman who at the 
same time had made a journey of a thousand miles 
across northern Montana, along the Milk River, 
told me that, to use his own expression, during the 
whole distance he was never out of sight of a dead 
buffalo, and never in sight of a live one. 



264 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

Thus, though gone, the traces of the buffalo are 
still thick over the land. Their dried dung is found 
everywhere, and is in many places the only fuel 
afforded by the plains ; their skulls, which last long- 
er than any other part of the animal, are among the 
most familiar of objects to the plainsman; their 
bones are in many districts so plentiful that it has 
become a regular industry, followed by hundreds 
of men (christened "bone hunters" by the frontiers- 
men), to go out with wagons and collect them in 
great numbers for the sake of the phosphates they 
yield; and Bad Lands, plateaus, and prairies alike 
are cut up in all directions by the deep ruts which 
were formerly buffalo trails. 

These buffalo trails were made by the herds 
traveling strung out in single file, and invariably 
taking the same route each time they passed over 
the same piece of ground. As a consequence, many 
of the ruts are worn so deeply into the ground that 
a horseman riding along one strikes his stirrups on 
the earth. In moving through very broken country 
they are often good guides ; for though buffalo can 
go easily over the roughest places, they prefer to 
travel where it is smooth, and have a remarkable 
knack at finding out the best passage down a steep 
ravine, over a broken cliff, or along a divide. In 
a pass, or, as it is called in the West, "draw," be- 
tween two feeding grounds, through which the 
buffalo were fond of going, fifteen or twenty deep 
trails may be seen ; and often, where the great beasts 
have traveled in parallel files, two ruts will run side 



The Lordly Buffalo 265 

by side over the prairie for a mile's length. These 
old trails are frequently used by the cattle herds at 
the present time, or are even turned into pony paths 
by the ranchmen. For many long years after the 
buffalo die out from a place, their white skulls and 
well-worn roads remain as melancholy monuments 
of their former existence. 

The rapid and complete extermination of the 
buffalo affords an excellent instance of how a race, 
that has thriven and multiplied for ages under con- 
ditions of life to which it has slowly fitted itself by 
a process of natural selection continued for count- 
less generations, may succumb at once when these 
surrounding conditions are varied by the introduc- 
tion of one or more new elements, immediately be- 
coming the chief forces with which it has to contend 
in the struggle for life. The most striking charac- 
teristics of the buffalo, and those which had been 
found most useful in maintaining the species until 
the white man entered upon the scene, were its 
phenomenal gregariousness — surpassed by no other 
four-footed beast, and only equaled, if equaled at 
all, by one or two kinds of South African antelope, 
— its massive bulk, and unwieldy strength. The 
fact that it was a plains and not a forest or moun- 
tain animal was at that time also greatly in its favor. 
Its toughness and hardy endurance fitted it to con- 
tend with purely natural forces: to resist cold and 
the winter blasts, or the heat of a thirsty summer, 
to wander away to new pastures when the feed 
on the old was exhausted, to plunge over broken 

L Vol. IV. 



266 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

ground, and to plow its way through snowdrifts 
or quagmires. But one beast of prey existed suffi- 
ciently powerful to conquer it when full grown and 
in health; and this, the grisly bear, could only be 
considered an occasional foe. The Indians were 
its most dangerous enemies, but they were without 
horses, and their weapons, bows and arrows, were 
only available at close range; so that a slight de- 
gree of speed enabled buffalo to get out of the way 
of their human foes when discovered, and on the 
open plains a moderate development of the senses 
was sufficient to warn them of the approach of the 
latter before they had come up to the very close 
distance required for their primitive weapons to 
take effect. Thus the strength, size, and gregarious 
habits of the brute were sufficient for a protection 
against most foes ; and a slight degree of speed and 
moderate development of the senses served as ade- 
quate guards against the grislies and bow-bearing 
'foot Indians. Concealment and the habit of seeking 
lonely and remote places for a dwelling would have 
been of no service. 

But the introduction of the horse, and shortly 
afterward the incoming of white hunters carrying 
long-range rifles, changed all this. The buffaloes' 
gregarious habits simply rendered them certain to 
be seen, and made it a matter of perfect ease to fol- 
low them up; their keeping to the open plains 
heightened their conspicuousness, while their senses 
were too dull to discover their foes at such a dis- 
tance as to nullify the effects of the long rifles; 



The Lordly Buffalo 267 

their speed was not such as to enable them to flee 
from a horseman ; and their size and strength merely 
made them too clumsy either to escape from or to 
contend with their foes. Add to this the fact that 
their hides and flesh were valuable, and it is small 
wonder that under the new order of things they 
should have vanished with such rapidity. 

The incoming of the cattlemen was another 
cause of the completeness of their destruction. 
Wherever there is good feed for a buffalo, there is 
good feed for a steer or cow ; and so the latter have 
penetrated into all the pastures of the former; and 
of course the cowboys follow. A cowboy is not 
able to kill a deer or antelope unless in exceptional 
cases, for they are too fleet, too shy, or keep them- 
selves too well hidden. But a buffalo neither 
tries nor is able to do much in the w^ay of hiding 
itself; its senses are too duU to give it warning in 
time; and it is not so swift as a horse, so that a 
cowboy, riding round in the places where cattle, and 
therefore buffalo, are likely to be, is pretty sure to 
see any of the latter that may be about, and then can 
easily approach near enough to be able to overtake 
them when they begin running. The size and value 
of the animal make the chase after it very keen. 
Hunters will follow the trail of a band for days, 
when they would not follow that of a deer or ante- 
lope for a half hour. 

Events have developed a race of this species, 
known either as the wood or mountain buffalo, 
which is acquiring, and has already largely ac- 



268 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

quired, habits widely different from those of the 
others of its kind. It is found in the wooded and 
most precipitous portions of the mountains, instead 
of on the level and open plains ; it goes singly or in 
small parties, instead of in huge herds; and it is 
more agile and infinitely more wary than is its 
prairie cousin. The formation of this race is due 
solely to the extremely severe process of natural 
selection that has been going on among the buffalo 
herds for the last sixty or seventy years; the vast 
majority of the individuals were utterly unable 
to accommodate themselves to the sudden and 
complete change in the surrounding forces v/ith 
which they had to cope, and therefore died out; 
while a very few of the more active and wary, and 
of those most given to wandering off into moun- 
tainous and out-of-the-way places, in each genera- 
tion survived, and among these the wariness con- 
tinually increased, partly by personal experience, 
and still more by inheriting an increasingly sus- 
picious nature from their ancestors. The sense of 
smell always was excellent in the buffalo; the sense 
of hearing becomes much quicker in any woods 
animal than it is in one found on the plains; while 
in beasts of the forest the eyesight does not have 
to be as keen as is necessary for their protection in 
open country. On the mountains the hair grows 
longer and denser, and the form rather more thick- 
set. As a result, a new race has been built up ; and 
we have an animal far better fitted to "harmonize 
with the environment," to use the scientific cant of 



The Lordly Buffalo 269 

the day. Unfortunately this race has developed 
too late. With the settlement of the country it 
will also disappear, unless very stringent laws are 
made for its protection ; but at least its existence will 
for some years prevent the total extermination of 
the species as a whole. It must be kept in mind that 
even this shyer kind of buffalo has not got the keen 
senses of other large game, such as moose; and it 
is more easily followed and much more keenly and 
eagerly sought after than would be any other ani- 
mal smaller and less valuable to the hunter than 
itself. 

While the slaughter of the buffalo has been in 
places needless and brutal, and while it is to be 
greatly regretted that the species is likely to become 
extinct, and while, moreover, from a purely selfish 
standpoint many, including myself, Avould rather 
see it continue to exist as the chief feature in the 
unchanged life of the Western wilderness; yet, on 
the other hand, it must be remembered that its con- 
tinued existence in any numbers was absolutely in- 
compatible with anything but a very sparse settle- 
ment of the country; and that its destruction was 
the condition precedent upon the advance of white 
civilization in the West, and was a positive boon 
to the more thrifty and industrious frontiersmen. 
Where the buffalo were plenty, they ate up all the 
grass that could have«supported cattle. The country 
over which the huge herds grazed during the last 
year or two of their existence was cropped bare, 
and the grass did not grow to its normal height 



270 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

and become able to support cattle for, in some cases 
two, in others three, seasons. Every buffalo needed 
as much food as an ox or cow; and if the former 
abounded, the latter perforce would have to be 
scarce. Above all, the extermination of the buf- 
falo was the only way of solving the Indian ques- 
tion. As long as this large animal of the chase 
existed, the Indians simply could not be kept on 
reservations, and always had an ampk supply of 
meat on hand to support them in the event of a 
war; and its disappearance was the only method 
of forcing them to at least partially abandon their 
savage mode of life. From the standpoint of hu- 
manity at large, the extermination of the buffalo 
has been a blessing. The many have been benefited 
by it; and I suppose the comparatively few of us 
who would have preferred the continuance of the 
old order of things, merely for the sake of our own 
selfish enjoyment, have no right to complain. 

The buffalo is easier killed than is any other kind 
of plains game; but its chase is far from being the 
tame amusement it has been lately represented. It 
is genuine sport; it needs skill, marksmanship, and 
hardihood in the man who follows it, and if he 
hunts on horseback, it needs also pluck and good 
riding. It is in no way akin to various forms of 
so-called sport in vogue in parts of the East, such as 
killing deer in a lake or by fire hunting, or even by 
watching at a runway. No man who is not of an 
adventurous temper, and able to stand rough food 
and living, will penetrate to the haunts of the buf- 



The Lordly Buffalo 471 

falo. The animal is so tough and tenacious of Hfe 
that it must be hit in the right spot; and care must 
be used in approaching it, for its nose is very keen, 
and though its sight is dull, yet, on the other hand, 
the plains it frequents are singularly bare of cover; 
while, finally, there is just a faint spice of danger 
in the pursuit, for the bison, though the least dan- 
gerous of all bovine animals, v^ill, on occasions, 
turn upon the hunter, and though its attack is, as 
a rule, easily avoided, yet in rare cases it manages 
to charge home. A ranchman of my acquaintance 
once, many years ago, went out buffalo hunting on 
horseback, together with a friend who was unused 
to the sport, and who was mounted on a large, un- 
trained, nervous horse. While chasing a bull, the 
friend's horse became unmanageable, and when the 
bull turned, proved too clumsy to get out of the way, 
and was caught on the horns, one of which entered 
its flank, while the other inflicted a huge, bruised 
gash across the man's thigh, tearing the muscles all 
out. Both horse and rider were flung to the ground 
with tremendous violence. The horse had to be 
killed, and the man died in a few hours from the 
shock, loss of blood, and internal injuries. Such an 
accident, however, is very exceptional. 

My brother was in at the death of the great 
southern herds in 1877, ^''^^ had a good deal of ex- 
perience in buffalo hunting; and once or twice was 
charged by old bulls, but never had any difficulty 
in either evading the charge or else killing the brute 
as it came on. My cousin, John Roosevelt, also 



272 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

had one adventure with a buffalo, in which he re- 
ceived rather a fright. He had been out on foot 
with a dog and had severely wounded a buffalo bull, 
which nevertheless, with the wonderful tenacity of 
life and ability to go over apparently inaccessible 
places that this species shows, managed to clamber 
up a steep, almost perpendicular, cliff. My cousin 
climbed up after it, with some difficulty ; on reaching 
the top he got his elbows over and drew himself 
up on them only to find the buffalo fronting him 
with lowered head not a dozen feet off. Immediate- 
ly upon seeing him it cocked up its tail and came 
forward. He was clinging with both hands to the 
edge and could not use his rifle; so, not relishing 
what was literally a tete-a-tete, he promptly let go 
and slid, or rather rolled, head over heels to the foot 
of the cliff, not hurting himself much in the sand, 
though of course a good deal jarred by the fall. 
The buffalo came on till its hoofs crumbled the earth 
at the brink, when the dog luckily got up and dis- 
tracted its attention; meanwhile, my cousin, having 
bounced down to the bottom, picked himself up, 
shook himself, and finding that nothing was broken, 
promptly scrambled up the bluff at another place 
a few yards off and shot his antagonist. 

When my cattle first came on the Little Mis- 
souri three of my men took a small bunch of them 
some fifty miles to the south and there wintered 
with them, on what were then the outskirts of the 
buffalo range, the herds having been pressed up 
northward. In the intervals of tending the cattle 



The Lordly Buffalo 273 

— work which was then entirely new to them — they 
occupied themselves in hunting buffalo, killing dur- 
ing the winter sixty or seventy, some of them on 
horseback, but mostly by still-hunting them on foot. 
Once or twice the bulls when wounded turned to 
bay; and a couple of them on one occasion charged 
one of the men and forced him to take refuge upon 
a steep isolated butte. At another time the three of 
them wounded a cow so badly that she broke down 
and would run no further, turning to bay in a small 
clump of thick trees. As this would have been a 
very bad place in which to skin the body, they 
wished to get her out and tried to tease her into 
charging; but she seemed too weak to make the 
effort. Emboldened by her apathy one of the 
men came up close behind her, while another was 
standing facing her; and the former finally entered 
the grove of trees and poked her with a long stick. 
This waked her up most effectually, and instead of 
turning on her assailant she went headlong at the 
man in front. He leaped to one side just in time, 
one of her horns grazing him, ripping away his 
clothes and knocking him over ; as he lay she tried to 
jump on him with her forefeet, but he rolled to one 
side, and as she went past she kicked at him like a 
vicious mule. The effort exhausted her, however, 
and she fell before going a dozen yards further. 
The man who was charged had rather a close shave ; 
thanks to the rashness and contempt of the game's 
prowess which they all felt — for all three are very 
quiet men and not afraid of anything. It is always 



274 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

a good rule to be cautious in dealing with an ap- 
parently dead or dying buffalo. About the time the 
above incident occurred a party of hunters near my 
ranch killed a buffalo, as they thought, and tied a 
pony to its foreleg, to turn it over, as its position 
was a very bad one for skinning. Barely had the 
pony been tied when the buft'alo came to with a 
jump, killed the unfortunate pony, and needed a 
dozen more balls before he fell for good. 

At that time the buffalo would occasionally be 
scattered among the cattle, but, as a rule, avoided 
the latter and seemed to be afraid of them ; while the 
cattle, on the contrary, had no apparent dread of 
the buffalo, unless it happened that on some occa- 
sion they got caught by a herd of the latter that had 
stampeded. A settler or small ranchman, not far 
from my place, was driving in a team of oxen in 
a wagon one day three years since, when, in crossing 
a valley, he encountered a little herd of stampeded 
buffalo, who, in their blind and heedless terror, ran 
into him and knocked over the wagon and oxen. 
The oxen never got over the fright the rough han- 
dling caused them, and ever afterward became un- 
manageable and tore off at sight or smell of a 
buffalo. It is said that the few buffalo left in the 
country through which the head waters of the Belle 
Fourche flow have practically joined themselves to 
the great herds of cattle now found all over that 
region. 

Buffalo are very easily tamed. On a neighboring 
ranch there are four which were taken when very 



The Lordly Buffalo 275 

young cah'es. They wander about with the cattle, 
and are quite as familiar as any of them, and do 
not stray any further away. One of them was cap- 
tured when a yearling, by the help of a large yellow 
hound. The cowboy had been chasing it some time 
and, finally, fearing it might escape, hied on the 
hound, which dashed in, caught the buffalo by the 
ear, and finally brought it down to its knees, when 
the cowboy, by means of his lariat, secured it, and, 
with the help of a companion, managed to get it 
back to the ranch. Buffalo can be trained to draw 
a wagon, and are valuable for their great strength; 
but they are very headstrong and stupid. If thirsty, 
for instance, and they smell or see water, it is ab- 
solutely impossible to prevent their going to it, no 
matter if it is in such a place that they have to upset 
the wagon to get down to it, nor how deep the 
mud is. When tamed they do not seem to be as 
ferocious as ordinary cattle that are allowed to go 
free; but they are such strong, blundering brutes 
that very few fences will hold them. 

My men, in hunting buffalo, which was with 
them an occasional occupation and not a regular 
pursuit, used light Winchesters ; but the professional 
buffalo hunters carried either 40-90 or 45-120 
Sharps, than which there are in the world no rifles 
more accurate or powerful ; with the larger-calibred 
ones (45 or 50) a man could easily kill an elephant. 
These weapons are excellent for very long range 
work, being good for half a mile and over; and 
sometimes the hunters were able to kill very many 



2.76 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

buffalo at a time, owing to their curious liability 
to fits of stupid, panic terror. Sometimes when 
these panics seize them they stampede and run off 
in headlong, heedless flight, going over anything 
in their way. Once, in mid-winter, one of my men 
was lying out in the open, under a heavy roll of 
furs, the wagon sheet over all. During the night 
a small herd of stampeded buffalo passed by, and 
one of them jumped on the bed, almost trampling 
on the sleeper, and then bounded off, as the latter 
rose with a yell. The others of the herd passed 
almost within arm's length on each side. 

Occasionally these panic fits have the opposite 
effect and make them run together and stand still 
in a stupid, frightened manner. This is now and 
then the result when a hunter fires at a herd while 
keeping himself concealed; and on rare occasions 
(for buffalo act very differently at different times, 
according to their moods) it occurs even when he 
is in full sight. When they are made to act thus 
it is called in hunters' parlance getting a "stand" 
on them; and often thirty or forty have been killed 
in one such stand, the hunter hardly shifting his 
position the whole time. Often, with their long- 
range heavy rifles, the hunters would fire a number 
of shots into a herd half a mile off, and on ap- 
proaching would find that they had bagged several 
— for the Sharps rifle has a very long range, and 
the narrow, heavy conical bullets will penetrate al- 
most anything. Once while coming in over the 
plains with an ox wagon two of my cowboys sur- 



The Lordly Buffalo 277 

prised a band of buffaloes, which on being fired at 
ran clear round them and then made a stand in 
nearly their former position; and there they stood 
until the men had fired away most of their ammu- 
nition, but only half a dozen or so wQve killed, the 
Winchesters being too light for such a distance. 
Hunting on foot is much the most destructive w^ay 
of pursuing buffaloes ; but it lacks the excitement 
of chasing them with horses. 

When in Texas my brother had several chances 
to hunt them on horseback, while making a trip 
as guest of a captain of United States cavalry. The 
country through which they hunted w^as rolling and 
w^ell w^atered, the buffalo being scattered over it in 
bands of no great size. While riding out to look 
for the game they were mounted on large horses; 
when a band was spied they would dismount and 
get on the smaller buffalo ponies w^hich the orderlies 
had been leading behind them. Then they would 
carefully approach from the leeward side, if pos- 
sible keeping behind some hill or divide. When 
this was no longer possible they trotted gently 
toward the game, which usually gathered together 
and stood for a moment looking at them, The in- 
stant the buffalo turned, the spurs were put in and 
the ponies raced forward for all there was in them, 
it being an important point to close as soon as pos- 
sible, as buffalo, though not swift, are very endur- 
ing. Usually a half a mile took the hunters up to 
the game, \vhen each singled out his animal, rode 
alongside on its left flank, so close as almost to 



278 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

be able to touch it with the hand, and fired the heavy 
revolver into the loins or small of the back^ the bul- 
let ranging forward. At the instant of firing, the 
trained pony swerved off to the left, almost at right 
angles to its former course, so as to avoid the lung- 
ing charge sometimes made by the wounded brute. 
If the animal kept on, the hunter, having made a 
half circle, again closed up and repeated the shot; 
very soon the buffalo came to a halt, then its head 
dropped, it straddled widely with its forelegs, 
swayed to and fro, and pitched heavily forward on 
its side. The secret of success in this sort of hunting 
is to go right up by the side of the buffalo; if a 
man stays off at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet 
he may fire a score of shots and not kill or cripple 
his game. 

While hunting this, the largest of American ani- 
mals, on horseback is doubtless the most exciting 
way in which its chase can be carried on, we must 
beware of crying down its pursuit on foot. To 
be sure, in the latter case, the actual stalking and 
shooting the buffalo does not need on the part of 
the hunter as much skill and as good marksmanship 
as is the case in hunting most other kinds of large 
game, and is but a trifle more risky; yet, on the 
other hand, the fatigue of following the game is 
much greater, and the country is usually so wild 
as to call for some hardihood and ability to stand 
rough work on the part of the man who pene- 
trates it. 

One September I determined to take a short trip 



The Lordly Buffalo 279 

after bison. At that time I was staying in a cow- 
camp a good many miles up the river from my 
ranch ; there were then no cattle south of me, where 
there are now very many thousand head, and the 
buffalo had been plentiful in the country for a 
couple of winters past, but the last of the herds had 
been destroyed or driven out six months before, 
and there were only a few stragglers left. It was 
one of my first hunting trips; previously I had shot 
with the rifle very little, and that only at deer or 
antelope. I took as a companion one of my best 
men, named Ferris ( a brother of the Ferris already 
mentioned) ; we rode a couple of ponies, not very 
good ones, and each carried his roll of blankets and 
a very small store of food in a pack behind the 
saddle. 

Leaving the cow-camp early in the morning, we 
crossed the Little Missouri and for the first ten 
miles threaded our way through the narrow defiles 
and along the tortuous divides of a great tract of 
Bad Lands. Although it was fall and the nights 
were cool the sun was very hot in the middle of 
the day, and we jogged along at a slow pace, so as 
not to tire our ponies. Two or three black-tail 
deer were seen, some distance off, and when we 
were a couple of hours on our journey, we came 
across the fresh track of a bull buffalo. Buffalo 
wander a great distance, for, though they do not 
go fast, yet they may keep traveling, as they graze, 
all day long; and though this one had evidently 
passed but a few hours before, we were not sure we 



2 8o Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

would see him. His tracks were easily followed 
as long as he had kept to the soft creek bottom, 
crossing and recrossing the narrow wet ditch which 
wound its way through it; but when he left this 
and turned up a winding coulie that branched out 
in every direction, his hoofs scarcely made any 
marks in the hard ground. We rode up the ravine, 
carefully examining the soil for nearly half an hour, 
however; finally, as we passed the mouth of a little 
side coulie, there was a plunge and crackle through 
the bushes at its head, and a shabby-looking old bull 
bison galloped out of it and, without an instant's 
hesitation, plunged over a steep bank into a patch 
of rotten, broken ground which led around the base 
of a high butte. So quickly did he disappear that 
we had not time to dismount and fire. Spurring our 
horses we galloped up to the brink of the cliff down 
which he had plunged; it was remarkable that he 
should have gone down it unhurt. From where we 
stood we could see nothing; so, getting our horses 
over the broken ground as fast as possible, we ran 
to the butte and rode round it, only to see the buf- 
falo come out of the broken land and climb up the 
side of another butte over a quarter of a mile of¥. 
In spite of his great weight and cumbersome, heavy- 
looking gait, he climbed up the steep bluf¥ with ease 
and even agility, and when he had reached the ridge 
stood and looked back at us for a moment; while 
so doing he held his head high up, and at that dis- 
tance his great shaggy mane and huge fore-quarter 
made him look like a lion. In another second he 



The Lordly Buffalo 281 

again turned away and made off; and, being evi- 
dently very shy and accustomed to being harassed 
by hunters, must have traveled a long distance be- 
fore stopping, for we followed his trail for some 
miles until it got on such hard, dry ground that his 
hoofs did not leave a scrape in the soil, and yet did 
not again catch so much as a glimpse of him. 

Soon after leaving his trail we came out on the 
great, broken prairies that lie far back from the 
river. These are by no means everywhere level. 
A flat space of a mile or two will be bounded by a 
low cliff or a row of small round-topped buttes ; or 
will be interrupted by a long, gentle sloping ridge, 
the divide between two creeks; or by a narrow 
canyon, perhaps thirty feet deep and not a dozen 
wide, stretching for miles before there is a crossing 
place. The smaller creeks were dried up, and were 
merely sinuous hollows in the prairie; but one or 
two of the larger ones held water here and there, 
and cut down through the land in bold, semicircu- 
lar sweeps, the outside of each curve being often 
bounded by a steep bluff with trees at its bottom, 
and occasionally holding a miry pool. At one of 
these pools we halted, about ten o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and lunched ; the banks were so steep and rotten 
that we had to bring water to the more clumsy of 
the two ponies in a hat. 

Then we remounted and fared on our way, scan- 
ning the country far and near from every divide, 
but seeing no trace of game. The air was hot and 
still, and the brown, barren land stretched out on 



282 Hunting Trips an the Prairie 

every side for leagues of dreary sameness. Once 
we came to a canyon which ran across our path, 
and followed along its brink for a mile to find a 
place where we could get into it; when we finally 
found such a place, we had to back the horses down 
to the bottom and then lead them along it for some 
hundred yards before finding a break through which 
we could climb out. 

It was late in the afternoon before we saw any 
game; then we made out in the middle of a large 
plain three black specks, which proved to be buffalo 
— old bulls. Our horses had come a good distance, 
under a hot sun, and as they had had no water ex- 
cept from the mud-hole in the morning they were 
in no condition for running. They were not very 
fast anyhow; so, though the ground was unfavor- 
able, we made up our minds to try to creep up to 
the buffalo. We left the ponies in a hollow half 
a mile from the game, and started off on our hands 
and knees, taking advantage of every sage-brush 
as cover. After a while we had to lie flat on our 
bodies and wriggle like snakes; and while doing 
this I blundered into a bed of cactus, and filled my 
hands with the spines. After taking advantage of 
every hollow, hillock, or sage-brush, we got within 
about a hundred and twenty-five or fifty yards of 
where the three bulls were unconsciously feeding, 
and as all between was bare ground I drew up 
and fired. It was the first time I ever shot at buf- 
falo, and, confused by the bulk and shaggy hair 
of the beast, I aimed too far back at one that was 



The Lordly Buffalo 283 

standing nearly broadside on toward me. The 
bullet told on his body with a loud crack, the dust 
flying up from his hide; but it did not work him 
any immediate harm, or in the least hinder him from 
making off ; and away went all three, with their tails 
up, disappearing over a slight rise in the ground. 

Much disgusted, w^e trotted back to where the 
horses were picketed, jumped on them, a good deal 
out of breath, and rode after the flying game. We 
thought that the wounded one might turn out and 
leave the others; and so followed them, though 
they had over a mile's start. For seven or eight 
miles we loped our jaded horses along at a brisk 
pace, occasionally seeing the buffalo far ahead ; and 
finally, when the sun had just set, we saw that all 
three had come to a stand in a gentle hollow. 
There was no cover anywhere near them; and, as 
a last desperate resort, we concluded to try to run 
them on our wornout ponies. 

As we cantered toward them they faced us for 
a second and then turned round and made off, while 
with spurs and quirts we made the ponies put on 
a burst that enabled us to close in with the wounded 
one just about the time that the lessening twilight 
had almost vanished ; while the rim of the full moon 
rose above the horizon. The pony I was on could 
barely hold its own, after getting up within sixty 
or seventy yards of the wounded bull; my compan- 
ion, better mounted, forged ahead, a little to one 
side. The bull saw him coming and swerved from 
his course, and by cutting across I was able to get 



284 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

nearly up to him. The ground over which we were 
running was fearful, being broken into holes and 
ditches, separated by hillocks; in the dull light, and 
at the speed we were going, no attempt could be 
made to guide the horses, and the latter, fagged out 
by their exertions, floundered and pitched forward 
at every stride, hardly keeping their legs. When 
up within twenty feet I fired my rifle, but the dark- 
ness, and especially the violent, labored motion of 
my pony, made me miss; I tried to get in closer, 
when suddenly up went the bull's tail, and wheeling, 
he charged me with lowered horns. My pony, 
frightened into momentary activity, spun round 
and tossed up his head; I was holding the rifle in 
both hands, and the pony's head, striking it, 
knocked it violently against my forehead, cutting 
quite a gash, from which, heated as I was, the 
blood poured into my eyes. Meanwhile the buflfalo, 
passing me, charged my companion, and followed 
him as he made off, and, as the ground was very 
bad, for some little distance his lowered head was 
unpleasantly near the tired pony's tail. I tried to 
run in on him again, but my pony stopped short, 
dead beat; and by no spurring could I force him 
out of a slow trot. My companion jumped off and 
took a couple of shots at the buffalo, which missed 
in the dim moonlight; and to our unutterable cha- 
grin the wounded bull labored off and vanished in 
the darkness. I made after him on foot, in hopeless 
and helpless wrath, until he got out of sight. 

Our horses were completely done out; we did 



The Lordly Buffalo 285 

not mount them again, but led them slowly along, 
trembling, foaming, and sweating. The ground 
was moist in places, and after an hour's search we 
found in a reedy hollow a little mud-pool, with 
water so slimy that it was almost gelatinous. 
Thirsty though we were, for we had not drunk for 
twelve hours, neither man nor horse could swallow 
more than a mouthful or two of this water. We 
unsaddled the horses, and made our beds by the 
[hollow, each eating a biscuit; there was not a twig 
with which to make a fire, nor anything to which 
we might fasten the horses. Spreading the saddle- 
blankets under us, and our own over us, we lay 
down, with the saddles as pillows, to which we had 
been obliged to lariat our steeds. 

The ponies stood about almost too tired to eat; 
but in spite of their fatigue they were very watch- 
ful and restless, continually snorting or standing 
with their ears forward, peering out into the night ; 
wild beasts, or some such things, were about. The 
day before we had had a false alarm from supposed 
hostile Indians, who turned out to be merely half- 
breed Crees; and, as we were in a perfectly lonely 
part of the wilderness, we knew we were in the do- 
main of both white and red horse-thieves, and that 
the latter might in addition to our horses try to take 
our scalps. It was some time before we dozed off, 
waking up with a start whenever we heard the 
horses stop grazing and stand motionless with heads 
raised, looking out into the darkness. But at last, 
tired out, we fell sound asleep. 



286 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

About midnight we were rudely awakened by 
having our pillows whipped out from under our 
heads; and as we started from the bed we saw, 
in the bright moonlight, the horses galloping madly 
off with the saddles, tied to the lariats whose other 
ends were round their necks, bounding and trailing 
after them. Our first thought was that they had 
been stampeded by horse-thieves, and we rolled 
over and crouched down in the grass with our rifles ; 
but nothing could be seen, except a shadowy four- 
footed form in the hollow, and in the end we found 
that the horses must have taken alarm at a wolf 
or wolves that had come up to the edge of the bank 
and looked over at us, not being able at first to 
make out what we were. 

We did not expect to find the horses again that 
night, but nevertheless took up the broad trail made 
by the saddles as they dragged through the dewy 
grass, and followed it well in the moonlight. Our 
task proved easier than we had feared; for they 
had not run much over half a mile, and we found 
them standing close together and looking intently 
round when we came up. Leading them back we 
again went to sleep; but the weather was rapidly 
changing, and by three o'clock a fine rain began to 
come steadily down, and we cowered and shivered 
under our wet blankets till morning. At the first 
streak of dawn, having again eaten a couple of bis- 
cuits, we were off, glad to bid good-bye to the in- 
hospitable pool, in whose neighborhood we had 
spent such a comfortless night. A fine, drizzling 



The Lordly Buffalo 287 

mist shrouded us and hid from sight all distant 
objects; and at times there were heavy downpours 
of rain. Before we had gone any distance we be- 
came what is termed by backwoodsmen or plains- 
men, "turned round," and the creeks suddenly 
seemed to be running the wrong way; after which 
we traveled purely by the compass. 

For some hours we kept a nearly straight course 
over the formless, shapeless plain, all drenched 
through, and thoroughly uncomfortable; then as 
we rose over a low divide the fog lifted for a few 
minutes, and we saw several black objects slowly 
crossing some rolling country ahead of us, and a 
glance satisfied us they were buffalo. The horses 
were picketed at once, and we ran up as near the 
game as we dared, and then began to stalk them, 
creeping forward on our hands and knees through 
the soft, muddy prairie soil, while a smart shower of 
rain blew in our faces, as we advanced up wind. 
The country was favorable, and we got within less 
than a hundred yards of the nearest, a large cow, 
though we had to creep along so slowly that we 
were chilled through, and our teeth chattered be- 
hind our blue lips. To crown my misfortunes, I 
now made one of those misses which a man to his 
dying day always looks back upon with wonder and 
regret. The rain was beating in my eyes, and the 
drops stood out in the sight of the rifle so that I 
could hardly draw a bead; and I either overshot 
or else at the last moment must have given a ner- 
vous jerk and pulled the rifle clear off the mark. 



288 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

At any rate I missed clean, and the whole band 
plunged down into a hollow and were off before, 
with my stiffened and numbed fingers, I could get 
another shot; and in wet, sullen misery we plodded 
back to the ponies. 

All that day the rain continued, and we passed 
another wretched night. Next morning, however, 
it had cleared off, and as the sun rose brightly we 
forgot our hunger and sleepiness, and rode cheerily 
off up a large dry creek, in whose bottom pools of 
rain-water still stood. During the morning, how- 
ever, our ill-luck continued. My companion's horse 
almost trod on a rattlesnake, and narrowly escaped 
being bitten. While riding along the face of a 
steeply-inclined bluff the sandy soil broke away 
under the ponies' hoofs, and we slid and rolled 
down to the bottom, where we came to in a heap, 
horses and men. Then while galloping through a 
brush-covered bottom my pony put both forefeet 
in a hole made by the falling and uprooting of a 
tree, and turned a complete somersault, pitching me 
a good ten feet beyond his head. And finally, while 
crossing what looked like the hard bed of a dry 
creek, the earth gave way under my horse as if he 
had stepped on a trap-door and let him down to his 
withers in soft, sticky mud. I was oft* at once and 
floundered to the bank, loosening the lariat from the 
saddlebow; and both of us turning to with a will, 
and bringing the other pony in to our aid, hauled 
him out by the rope, pretty nearly strangling him 
in so doing; and he looked rather a melancholy 



The Lordly Buffalo 289 

object as he stood up, trembhng and shaking, and 
plastered with mire from head to tail. 

So far the trip had certainly not been a success, 
although sufficiently varied as regards its incidents ; 
we had been confined to moist biscuits for three 
days as our food; had been wet and cold at night, 
and sunburned till our faces peeled in the day; were 
hungry and tired, and had met with bad weather, 
and all kinds of accidents; in addition to which I 
had shot badly. But a man who is fond of sport, 
and yet is not naturally a good hunter, soon learns 
that if he wishes any success at all he must both 
keep in memory and put in practice Anthony Trol- 
lope's famous precept: "It's dogged as does it." 
And if he keeps doggedly on in his course the odds 
are heavy that in the end the longest lane will prove 
to have a turning. Such was the case on this occa- 
sion. 

Shortly after mid-day we left the creek bottom, 
and skirted a ridge of broken buttes, cut up by 
gullies and winding ravines, in whose bottoms grew 
bunch grass. While passing near the mouth, and 
to leeward of one of these ravines, both ponies 
threw up their heads, and snuffed the air, turning 
their muzzles toward the head of the gully. Feel- 
ing sure that they had smelt some wild beast, either 
a bear or a buffalo, I slipped off my pony, and ran 
quickly but cautiously up along the valley. Before 
I had gone a hundred yards, I noticed in the soft soil 
at the bottom the round prints of a bison's hoofs; 
and immediately afterward got a glimpse of the 

M Vol. IV. 



290 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

animal himself, as he fed slowly up the course of 
the ravine, some distance ahead of me. The wind 
was just right, and no ground could have been 
better for stalking. Hardly needing to bend down, 
I walked up behind a small sharp-crested hillock, 
and peeping over, there below me, not fifty yards 
off, was a great bison bull. He was walking along, 
grazing as he walked. His glossy fall coat was in 
fine trim, and shone in the rays of the sun; while 
his pride of bearing showed him to be in the lusty 
vigor of his prime. As I rose above the crest of the 
hill, he held up his head and cocked his tail in the 
air. Before he could go off, I put the bullet in 
behind his shoulder. The wound was an almost 
immediately fatal one, yet with surprising agility 
for so large and heavy an animal, he bounded up 
the opposite side of the ravine, heedless of two 
more balls, both of which went into his flank and 
ranged forward, and disappeared over the ridge at 
a lumbering gallop, the blood pouring from his 
mouth and nostrils. We knew he could not go far, 
and trotted leisurely along on his bloody trail; and 
in the next gully we found him stark dead, lying 
almost on his back, having pitched over the side 
when he tried to go down it. His head was a re- 
markably fine one, even for a fall buffalo. He was 
lying in a very bad position, and it was most tedious 
and tiresome work to cut it off and pack it out. The 
flesh of a cow or calf is better eating than is that 
of a bull ; but the so-called hump meat — that is, the 
strip of steak on each side of the backbone — is ex- 



The Lordly Buffalo 291 

cellent, and tender and juicy. Buffalo meat is with 
difficulty to be distinguished from ordinary beef. 
At any rate, the flesh of this bull tasted uncom- 
monly good to us, for we had been without fresh 
meat for a week; and until a healthy, active man 
has been without it for some little time, he does not 
know how positively and almost painfully hungry 
for flesh he becomes, no matter how much farina- 
ceous food he may have. And the very toil I had 
been obliged to go through, in order to procure the 
head, made me feel all the prouder of it when it 
was at last in my possession. 

A year later I made another trip, this time w^ith 
a wagon, through what had once been a famous 
buffalo range, the divide between the Little Mis- 
souri and the Powder, at its northern end, where 
some of the creeks flowing into the Yellowstone 
also head up ; but though in most places throughout 
the range the grass had not yet grown from the 
time a few months before when it had been cropped 
off down close to the roots by the grazing herds, 
and though the ground was cut up in all directions 
by buffalo trails, and covered by their innumerable 
skulls and skeletons, not a living one did we see, and 
only one moderately fresh track, which we fol- 
lowed until we lost it. Some of the sharper ridges 
were of soft, crumbling sandstone, and when a 
buffalo trail crossed such a one, it generally made a 
curious, heart-shaped cut, the feet of the animals 
sinking the narrow path continually deeper and 
deeper, while their bodies brushed out the sides. 



292 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

The profile of a ridge across which several trails 
led had rather a curious look when seen against the 
sky. 

Game was scarce on this broken plains country, 
where the water supply was very scanty, and where 
the dull brown grass that grew on the parched, sun- 
cracked ground had been already cropped close; 
still we found enough to keep us in fresh meat ; and 
though no buffalo were seen, the trip was a pleasant 
oner There was a certain charm in the very vast- 
ness and the lonely, melancholy desolation of the 
land over which every day we galloped far and wide 
from dawn till nightfall; while the heavy canvas- 
covered wagon lumbered slowly along to the ap- 
pointed halting-place. On such a trip one soon gets 
to feel that the wagon is home; and after a tire- 
some day it is pleasant just to lie still in the twilight 
by the side of the smouldering fire and watch the 
men as they busy themselves cooking or arranging 
the beds, while the solemn old ponies graze around 
or stand quietly by the great white-topped prairie 
schooner. 

The blankets and rubbers being arranged in a 
carefully chosen spot to leeward of the wagon, we 
were not often bothered at night, even by quite 
heavy rainfalls; but once or twice, when in pecu- 
liarly exposed places, we were struck by such furi- 
ous gusts of wind and rain that we were forced to 
gather up our bedding and hastily scramble into 
the wagon, where we would at least be dry, even 
though in pretty cramped quarters. 



CHAPTER IV 

STILL-HUNTING ELK ON THE MOUNTAIN 

AFTER the buffalo the elk are the first animals 
to disappear from a country when it is settled. 
This arises from their size and consequent conspic- 
uousness, and the eagerness with which they are 
followed by hunters; and also because of their gre- 
gariousness and their occasional fits of stupid panic 
during whose continuance hunters can now and then 
work great slaughter in a herd. Five years ago elk 
were abundant in the valley of the Little Missouri, 
and in fall were found wandering in great bands of 
over a hundred individuals each. But they have 
now vanished completely, except that one or two 
may still lurk in some of the most remote and 
broken places, where there are deep, wooded ravines. 
Formerly the elk were plentiful all over the plains, 
coming down into them in great bands during the 
fall months and traversing their entire extent. But 
the incoming of hunters and cattlemen has driven 
them off the ground as completely as the buffalo; 
unlike the latter, however, they are still very com- 
mon in the dense woods that cover the Rocky 
Mountains and the other great Western chains. In 
the old days running elk on horseback was a highly 

(293) 



294 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

esteemed form of plains sport; but now that it has 
become a beast of the timber and the craggy ground, 
instead of a beast of the open, level prairie, it is 
followed almost solely on foot and with the rifle. 
Its sense of smell is very acute, and it has good 
eyes and quick ears ; and its wariness makes it under 
ordinary circumstances very difficult to approach. 
But it is subject to fits of panic folly, and during 
their continuance great numbers can be destroyed. 
A band places almost as much reliance upon the 
leaders as does a flock of sheep; and if the leaders 
are shot down, the others will huddle together in 
a terrified mass, seemingly unable to make up their 
minds in which direction to flee. When one, more 
bold than the rest, does at last step out, the hidden 
hunter's at once shooting it down -will produce a 
fresh panic; I have known of twenty elk (or wapiti, 
as they are occasionally called) being thus procured 
out of one band. And at times they show a curious 
indifference to danger, running up on a hunter who 
is in plain sight, or standing still for a few fatal 
seconds to gaze at one that unexpectedly appears. 
In spite of its size and strength and great branch- 
ing antlers, the elk is but little more dangerous to 
the hunter than is an ordinary buck. Once, in 
coming up to a wounded one, I had it strike at me 
with its forefeet, bristling up the hair on the neck, 
and making a harsh, grating noise with its teeth; 
as its back was broken it could not get at me, but 
the savage glare in its eyes left me no doubt as 
to its intentions. Only in a single instance have 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 295 

I ever known of a hunter being regularly charged 
by one of these great deer. He had struck a band 
of elk and wounded an old bull, which, after going 
a couple of miles, received another ball and then 
separated from the rest of the herd and took refuge 
in a dense patch of small timber. The hunter went 
in on its trail and came upon it lying down; it 
jumped to its feet and, with hair all bristling, made 
a regular charge upon its pursuer, who leaped out 
of the way behind a tree just in time to avoid it. 
It crashed past through the undergrowth without 
turning, and he killed it with a third and last shot. 
But this was a very exceptional case, and in most 
instances the elk submits to death with hardly an 
effort at resistance; it is by no means as dangerous 
an antagonist as is a bull moose. 

The elk is unfortunately one of those animals 
seemingly doomed to total destruction at no distant 
date. Already its range has shrunk to far less than 
one-half its former size. Originally it was found 
as far as the Atlantic sea-board; I have myself 
known of several sets of antlers preserved in the 
house of a Long Island gentleman, whose ancestors 
had killed the bearers shortly after the first settle- 
ment of New York. Even so late as the first years, 
of this century elk were found in many mountain- 
ous and densely wooded places east of the Missis- 
sippi; in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, and all of what were then the 
Northwestern States and Territories. The last in- 
dividual of the race was killed in the Adirondacks 



296 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

in 1834; in Pennsylvania not till nearly thirty years 
later; while a very few are still to be found in 
northern Michigan. Elsewhere they must now be 
sought far to the west of the Mississippi ; and even 
there they are almost gone from the great plains, 
and are only numerous in the deep mountain for- 
ests. Wherever it exists the skin hunters and meat 
butchers wage the most relentless and unceasing 
war upon it for the sake of its hide and flesh, and 
their unremitting persecution is thinning out the 
herds with terrible rapidity. 

The gradual extermination of this, the most 
stately and beautiful animal of the chase to be found 
in America, can be looked upon only with unmixed 
regret by every sportsman and lover of nature. Ex- 
cepting the moose, it is the largest and, without 
exception, it is the noblest of the deer tribe. No 
other species of true deer, in either the Old or the 
New World, come up to it in size and in the shape, 
length, and weight of its mighty antlers; while the 
grand, proud carriage and lordly bearing of an old 
bull make it perhaps the most majestic looking of 
all the animal creation. The open plains have al- 
ready lost one of their great attractions, now that 
we no more see the long lines of elk trotting across 
them; and it will be a sad day when the lordly, 
antlered beasts are no longer found in the wild 
rocky glens and among the lonely woods of tower- 
ing pines that cover the great Western mountain 
chains. 

The elk has other foes besides man. The grisly 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 297 

will always make a meal off one if he gets a chance ; 
and against his ponderous w^eight and savage 
prowess hoofs and antlers avail but little. Still he 
is too clumsy and easily avoided ever to do very 
much damage in the herds. Cougars, where they 
exist, work more havoc. A bull elk in rutting sea- 
son, if on his guard, would with ease beat off a 
cougar; but the sly, cunning cat takes its quarry 
unawares, and once the cruel fangs are fastened in 
the game's throat or neck, no plunging or struggling 
can shake it off. The gray timber wolves also join 
in twos and threes to hunt down and hamstring 
the elk, if other game is scarce. But these great 
deer can hold their own and make head against 
all their brute foes; it is only when pitted against 
Man the Destroyer that they succumb in the 
struggle for life. 

I have never shot any elk in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of where my cattle range; but I have had 
very good sport with them in a still wilder and more 
western region; and this I will now describe. 

During last summer we found it necessary to 
leave my ranch on the Little Missouri and take 
quite a long trip through the cattle country of 
southeastern Montana and northern Wyoming; 
and, having come to the foot of the Bighorn Moun- 
tains, we took a fortnight's hunt through them after 
elk and bear. 

We went into the mountains with a pack train, 
leaving the ranch wagon at the place where we 
began to go up the first steep rise. There w^ere 



298 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

two others, besides myself, in the party; one of 
them, the teamster, a weather-beaten old plainsman, 
who possessed a most extraordinary stock of mis- 
cellaneous misinformation upon every conceivable 
subject, and the other my ranch foreman, Merri- 
field. None of us had ever been within two hun- 
dred miles of the Bighorn range before; so that 
our hunting trip had the added zest of being also 
an exploring expedition. 

Each of us rode one pony, and the packs were 
carried on four others. We were not burdened by 
much baggage. Having no tent we took the can- 
vas wagon sheet instead; our bedding, plenty of 
spare cartridges, some flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, 
and salt, and a few very primitive cooking utensils, 
completed the outfit. 

The Bighorn range is a chain of bare, rocky 
peaks stretching lengthwise along the middle of a 
table-land which is about thirty miles wide. At its 
edges this table-land falls sheer off into the rolling 
plains country. From the rocky peaks flow rapid 
brooks of clear, icy water, which take their v^ay 
through deep gorges that they have channeled out 
in the surface of the plateau; a few miles from the 
heads of the streams these gorges become regular 
canyons, with sides so steep as to be almost per- 
pendicular; in traveling, therefore, the trail has to 
keep well up toward timber line, as lower down 
horses find it diflicult or impossible to get across 
the valleys. In strong contrast to the treeless cattle 
plains extending to its foot, the sides of the table- 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 299 

land are densely wooded with tall pines. Its top 
forms what is called a park country; that is, it is 
covered with alternating groves of trees and open 
glades, each grove or glade varying in size from 
half a dozen to many hundred acres. 

We went in with the pack train two days' jour- 
ney before pitching camp in what we intended to 
be our hunting grounds, following an old Indian 
trail. No one who has not tried it can understand 
the work and worry that it is to drive a pack train 
over rough ground and through timber. We were 
none of us very skilful at packing, and the loads 
were all the time slipping; sometimes the ponies 
would stampede with the pack half tied, or they 
would get caught among the fallen logs, or in a 
ticklish place would suddenly decline to follow the 
trail, or would commit some one of the thousand 
other tricks which seem to be all a pack-pony knows. 
Then at night they were a bother; if picketed out 
they fed badly and got thin, and if they were not 
picketed they sometimes strayed away. The most 
valuable one of the lot was also the hardest to catch. 
Accordingly we used to let him loose with a long 
lariat tied round his neck, and one night this lariat 
twisted up in a sage-brush, and in struggling to 
free himself the pony got a half-hitch round his 
hind leg, threw himself, and fell over a bank into 
a creek on a large stone. We found him in the 
morning very much the worse for wear and his hind 
legs swelled up so that his chief method of pro- 
gression was by a series of awkward hops. Of 



300 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

course no load could be put upon him, but he man- 
aged to limp along behind the other horses, and 
actually in the end reached the ranch on the Little 
Missouri three hundred miles off. No sooner had 
he got there and been turned loose to rest than he 
fell down a big washout and broke his neck. An- 
other time one of the mares — a homely beast with 
a head like a camel's — managed to flounder into 
the very centre of a mud-hole, and we spent the bet- 
ter part of a morning in fishing her out. 

It was on the second day of our journey into the 
mountains, while leading the pack-ponies down the 
precipitous side of a steep valley, that I obtained 
my first sight of elk. The trail wound through a 
forest of tall, slender pines, standing very close to- 
gether, and with dead trees lying in every direction. 
The narrow trunks or overhanging limbs threatened 
to scrape off the packs at every moment, as the 
ponies hopped and scrambled over the fallen trunks ; 
and it was difficult work, and most trying to the 
temper, to keep them going along straight and 
prevent them from wandering off to one side 
or the other. At last we got out into a succes- 
sion of small, open glades, with boggy spots in 
them; the lowest glade was of some size, and as 
we reached it we saw a small band of cow elk dis- 
appearing into the woods on its other edge. I was 
riding a restive horse, and when I tried to jump off 
to shoot, it reared and turned round, before I could 
get my left foot out of the stirrup; when I at last 
got free I could get a glimpse of but one elk, van- 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 301 

ishing behind a dead trunk, and my hasty shot 
missed. I was a good deal annoyed at this, my 
opening experience with mountain game, feeling 
that it was an omen of misfortune; but it did not 
'prove so, for during the rest of my two weeks' stay, 
I with one exception got every animal I fired at. 

A beautiful, clear mountain brook ran through 
the bottom of the valley, and in an open space by 
its side we pitched camp. We were entirely out of 
fresh meat, and after lunch all three of us separated 
to hunt, each for his own hand. The teamster 
went up stream, Merrifield went down, while I fol- 
lowed the tracks of the band of cows and calves 
that we had started in the morning; their trail led 
along the wooded hill-crests parallel to the stream, 
and therefore to Merrifield's course. The crests of 
the hills formed a wavy-topped but continuous ridge 
between two canyon-like valleys, and the sides fell 
off steeper and steeper the further down stream I 
went, until at last they were broken in places by 
sheer precipices and cliffs; the groves of trees too, 
though with here and there open glades, formed a 
continuous forest of tall pines. There was a small 
growth of young spruce and other evergreen, thick 
enough to give cover, but not to interfere with see- 
ing and shooting to some distance. The pine trunks 
rose like straight columns, standing quite close to- 
gether; and at their bases the ground was carpeted 
with the sweet-scented needles, over which, in my 
moccasined feet, I trod without any noise. It was 
but a little past noon, and the sun in the open was 



302 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

very hot ; yet underneath the great archways of the 
pine woods the air though still was cool, and the 
sunbeams that struggled down here and there 
through the interlacing branches, and glinted on 
the rough trunks, only made bright spots in what 
was elsewhere the uniform, grayish half-light of 
the mountain forest. Game trails threaded the 
woods in all directions, made for the most part by 
the elk. These animals, when not disturbed, travel 
strung out in single file, each one stepping very 
nearly in the tracks of the one before it; they are 
great wanderers, going over an immense amount 
of country during the course of a day, and so they 
soon wear regular, well-beaten paths in any place 
where they are at all plentiful. 

The band I was following had, as is their cus- 
tom, all run together into a wedge-shaped mass 
when I fired, and crashed off through the woods in 
a bunch during the first moments of alarm. The 
footprints in the soil showed that they had in the 
beginning taken a plunging gallop, but after a few 
strides had settled into the swinging, ground-cov- 
ering trot that is the elk's most natural and charac- 
teristic gait. A band of elk when alarmed is likely 
to go twenty miles without halting; but these had 
probably been very little molested, and there was a 
chance that they would not go far without stopping. 
After getting through the first grove, the huddled 
herd had straightened itself out into single file, and 
trotted off in a nearly straight line. A mile or two 
of ground having been passed over in this way, the 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 303 

animals had slackened their pace into a walk, evi- 
dently making up their minds that they were out 
of danger. Soon afterward they had begun to go 
slower, and to scatter out on each side, browsing or 
grazing. 

It was not difficult work to follow up the band at 
first. While trotting their sharp hoofs came down 
with sufficient force to leave very distinct footprints, 
and, moreover, the trail was the more readily made 
out as all the animals trod nearly in each other's 
steps. But when the band spread out the tracking 
was much harder, as each single one, walking slowly 
along, merely made here and there a slight scrape 
in the soil or a faint indentation in the bed of pine 
needles. Besides, I had to advance with the greatest 
caution, keeping the sharpest lookout in front and on 
all sides of me. Even as it was, though I got very 
close up to my game, they were on foot before I 
saw them, and I did not get a standing shot. While 
carefully looking to my footsteps I paid too little 
heed to the rifle which I held in my right hand, and 
let the barrel tap smartly on a tree trunk. Instantly 
there was a stamp and movement among the bushes 
ahead and to one side of me; the elk had heard but 
had neither seen nor smelt me; and a second after- 
ward I saw the indistinct, shadowy outlines of the 
band as they trotted down hill, from where their 
beds had been made on the very summit of the crest, 
taking a course diagonal to mine. I raced forward 
and also down hill, behind some large mossy bowl- 
ders, and cut them fairly off, the band passing di- 



304 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

rectly ahead of me and not twenty yards away, 
at a slashing trot, which a few of them changed for 
a wild gallop, as I opened fire. I was so hemmed 
in by the thick tree trunks, and it was so difficult to 
catch more than a fleeting glimpse of each animal, 
that though I fired four shots I only brought down 
one elk, a full-grown cow, with a broken neck, dead 
in its tracks ; but I also broke the hind leg of a bull 
calf. Elk offer easy marks when in motion, much 
easier than deer, because of their trotting gait, and 
their regular, deliberate movements. They look 
very handsome as they trot through a wood, step- 
ping lightly and easily over the dead trunks and 
crashing through the underbrush, with the head 
held up and nose pointing forward. In galloping, 
however, the neck is thrust straight out in front, 
and the animal moves with labored bounds, which 
carry it along rapidly but soon tire it out. 

After thrusting the hunting-knife into the throat 
of the cow, I followed the trail of the band ; and in 
an open glade, filled with tall sage-brush, came 
across and finished the wounded calf. Meanwhile 
the others ran directly across Merrifield's path, and 
he shot two. This gave us much more meat than 
we wished; nor would we have shot as many, but 
neither of us could reckon upon the other's getting 
as much game, and flesh was a necessity. Leaving 
Merrifield to skin and cut up the dead animals, I 
walked back to camp where I found the teamster, 
who had brought in the hams and tongues of two 
deer he had shot, and sent him back with a pack- 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 305 

pony for the hides and meat of the elk. Elk tongues 
are most deHcious eating, being juicy, tender, and 
well flavored; they are excellent to take out as a 
lunch on a long hunting trip. 

We now had more than enough meat in camp, 
and did not shoot at another cow or calf elk while 
on the mountains, though we saw quite a number; 
the last day of my stay I was within fifty yards 
of two that were walking quietly through a very 
dense, swampy wood. But it took me some time 
longer before I got any fine heads. 

The day after killing the cow and calf I went 
out in the morning by myself and hunted through 
the woods up toward the rocky peaks, going above 
timber line, and not reaching camp until after night- 
fall. In hunting through a wild and unknown coun- 
try a man must always take great care not to get 
lost. In the first place he should never, under any 
conceivable circumstances, stir fifty yards from 
camp without a compass, plenty of matches, and his 
rifle; then he need never feel nervous, even if he is 
lost, for he can keep himself from cold and hunger, 
and can steer a straight course until he reaches 
some settlement. But he should not get lost at all. 
Old plainsmen or backwoodsmen get to have almost 
an instinct for finding their way, and are able to tell 
where they are and the way home in almost any 
place ; probably they keep in their heads an accurate 
idea of their course and of the general lay of the 
land. But most men can not do this. In hunting 
through a new country a man should, if possible, 



3o6 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

choose some prominent landmarks, and then should 
learn how they look from different sides — for they 
will' with difficulty be recognized as the same ob- 
jects, if seen from different points of view. If he 
gets out of sight of these, he should choose another 
to work back to, as a kind of halfway point; and so 
on. He should keep looking back; it is wonderful 
how different a country looks when following back 
on one's trail. If possible, he should locate his 
camp, in his mind, with reference to a line, and not 
a point; he should take a river or a long ridge, for 
example. Then at any time he can strike back to 
this line and follow it up or down till he gets home. 
If possible, I always spend the first day, when on 
new ground, in hunting up-stream. Then, so long 
as I am sure I do not wander off into the valleys 
or creeks of another water-course, I am safe, for, 
no matter on what remote branch, all I have to do 
is to follow down-stream until I reach camp; while 
if I was below camp, it would be difficult to tell 
which fork to follow up every time the stream 
branched. A man should always notice the posi- 
tion of the sun, the direction from which the wind 
blows, the slope of the water-courses, prominent 
features in the landscape, and so forth, and should 
keep in mind his own general course; and he had 
better err on the side of caution rather than on that 
of boldness. Getting lost is very uncomfortable, 
both for the man himself and for those who have 
to break up their work and hunt for him. Deep 
woods or perfectly flat, open country are almost 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 307 

equally easy places in which to get lost; while if 
the country is moderately open and level, with only 
here and there a prominent and easily recognized 
hill or butte, a man can safely go where he wishes, 
hardly paying any heed to his course. But even 
here he should know his general direction from 
camp, so as to be able to steer for it with a compass 
if a fog comes up. And if he leaves his horse hid- 
den in a gully or pocket while he goes off to hunt 
on foot, he must recollect to keep the place well in 
his mind ; on one occasion when I feared that some- 
body might meddle with my horse, I hid him so suc- 
cessfully that I spent the better part of a day in 
finding him. 

Keeping in mind the above given rules, when 
I left camp the morning after the breaking up of 
the band of cows and calves, I hunted up-stream, 
and across and through the wooded spurs dividing 
the little brooks that formed its head waters. No 
game was encountered, except some blue grouse, 
which I saw when near camp on my return, and 
shot for the pot. These blue grouse are the largest 
species found in America, except the sage fowl. 
They are exclusively birds of the deep mountain 
forests, and in their manners remind one of the 
spruce grouse of the Northeastern woods, being al- 
most equally tame. When alarmed, they fly at once 
into a tree, and several can often be shot before 
the remainder take fright and are off. On this trip 
we killed a good many, shooting off their heads 
with our rifles. They formed a most welcome ad- 



3o8 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

dition to our bill of fare, the meat being white and 
excellent. A curious peculiarity in their flesh is 
that the breast meat has in it a layer of much darker 
color. They are very handsome birds, and furnish 
dainty food to men wearied of venison; but, unless 
their heads are knocked off with a rifle, they do not 
furnish much sport, as they will not fly off when 
flushed, but simply rise into a fairly tall tree, and 
there sit, motionless, except that the head is twisted 
and bobbed round to observe the acts of the foe. 

All of the sig-hts and sounds in these pine woods 
that clothed the Bighorn Mountains reminded me 
of the similar ones seen and heard in the great, 
sombre forests of Maine and the Adirondacks. 
The animals and birds were much the same. As 
in the East, there were red squirrels, chipmunks, 
red hares, and woodchucks, all of them differing 
but slightly from our common kinds; woodpeck- 
ers, chickadees, nuthatches, and whiskey- jacks came 
about camp; ravens and eagles flew over the rocky 
cliffs. There were some new forms, however. 
The nutcracker, a large, noisy, crow-like bird, with 
many of the habits of a woodpecker, was common, 
and in the rocks above timber line, we came upon 
the Little Chief hare, a wee animal, with a shrill, 
timorous squeak. 

During our stay upon the mountains the weather 
was generally clear, but always cold, thin ice cov- 
ering the dark waters of the small mountain tarns, 
and there were slight snow-falls every two or three 
days ; but we were only kept in camp one day, when 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 309 

it sleeted, snowed, and rained from dawn till night- 
fall. We passed this day very comfortably, how- 
ever. I had far too much forethought to go into 
the woods without a small supply of books for just 
such occasions. We had rigged the canvas wagon 
sheet into a tent, at the bottom of the ravine, near 
the willow-covered brink of the brook that ran 
through it. The steep hill-sides bounding the val- 
ley, which a little below us became sheer cliffs, were 
partly covered with great pines and spruces, and 
partly open ground grown up with tall grass and 
sage-brush. We were thus well sheltered from the 
wind ; and when one morning we looked out and saw 
the wet snow lying on the ground, and with its 
weight bending down the willow bushes and loading 
the tall evergreens, while the freezing sleet rattled 
against the canvas, we simply started a roaring fire 
of pine logs in front of the tent, and passed a cosy 
day inside, cleaning guns, reading, and playing 
cards. Blue grouse, elk hams, and deer saddles 
hung from the trees around, so we had no fear of 
starvation. Still, toward evening we got a little 
tired, and I could not resist taking a couple of 
hours' brisk ride in the mist, through a chain of open 
glades that sloped off from our camp. 

Later on we made a camp at the head of a great 
natural meadow, where two streams joined to- 
gether, and in times long' gone by had been dammed 
by the beaver. This had at first choked up the 
passage and made a small lake; then dams were 
built higher and higher up, making chains of little 



3IO Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

ponds. By degrees these filled up, and the whole 
valley became a broad marshy meadow, through 
which the brook wound between rows of willows 
and alders. These beaver meadows are very com- 
mon; but are not usually of such large size. 
Around this camp there was very little game; but 
we got a fine mess of spotted trout by taking a long 
and most toilsome walk up to a little lake lying- 
very near timber line. Our rods and lines were 
most primitive, consisting of two clumsy dead 
cedars (the only trees within reach), about six feet 
of string tied to one and a piece of catgut to the 
other, with preposterous hooks; yet the trout were 
so ravenous that we caught them at the rate of 
about one a minute; and they formed another wel- 
come change in our camp fare. This lake lay in 
a valley whose sides were so steep and bowlder- 
covered as to need hard climbing to get into and 
out of it. Every day in the cold, clear weather we 
tramped miles and miles through the woods and 
mountains, which, after a snowstorm, took on a 
really wintry look ; while in the moonlight the snow- 
laden forests shone and sparkled like crystal. The 
dweller in cities has but a faint idea of the way we 
ate and slept. 

One day Merrifield and I went out together and 
had a rather exciting chase after some bull elk. 
The previous evening, toward sunset, I had seen 
three bulls trotting off across an open glade toward 
a great stretch of forest and broken ground, up near 
the foot of the rocky peaks. Next morning early 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 311 

we started off to hunt through this country. The 
walking was hard work, especially up and down the 
steep cliffs, covered with slippery pine needles; or 
among the windfalls, where the rows of dead trees 
lay piled up across one another in the wildest con- 
fusion. We saw nothing until we came to a large 
patch of burned ground, where we at once found the 
soft, black soil marked up by elk hoofs ; nor had we 
penetrated into it more than a few hundred yards 
before we came to tracks made but a few minutes 
before, and almost instantly afterward saw three 
bull elk, probably those I had seen on the preceding 
day. We had been running briskly up-hill through 
the soft, heavy loam, in which our feet made no 
noise but slipped and sank deeply ; as a consequence, 
I was all out of breath and my hand so unsteady that 
I missed my first shot. Elk, however, do not vanish 
with the instantaneous rapidity of frightened deer, 
and these three trotted off in a direction quartering 
to us. I doubt if I ever went through more violent 
exertion than in the next ten minutes. We raced 
after them at full speed, opening fire; I wounded 
all three, but none of the wounds was immediately 
disabling. They trotted on and we panted after- 
ward, slipping on the wet earth, pitching headlong 
over charred stumps, leaping on dead logs that 
broke beneath our weight, more than once measur- 
ing our full length on the ground, halting and fir- 
ing whenever we got a chance. At last one bull fell ; 
we passed him by after the others which were still 
running up-hill. The sweat streamed into my eyes 



312 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

and made furrows in the sooty mud that covered my 
face, from having fallen full length down on the 
burned earth; I sobbed for breath as I toiled at 
a shambling trot after them, as nearly done out as 
could well be. At this moment they turned down- 
hill. It was a great relief; a man who is too done 
up to go a steep up-hill can still run fast enough 
down; with a last spurt I closed in near enough to 
fire again ; one elk fell ; the other went off at a walk. 
We passed the second elk and I kept on alone after 
the third, not able to go at more than a slow trot 
myself, and too much winded to dare risk a shot at 
any distance. He got out of the burned patch, 
going into some thick timber in a deep ravine; I 
closed pretty well, and rushed after him into a 
thicket of young evergreens. Hardly was I in when 
there was a scramble and bounce among them and I 
caught a glimpse of a yellow body moving out to one 
side ; I ran out toward the edge and fired through the 
twigs at the moving beast. Down it went, but when 
I ran up, to my disgust I found that I had jumped 
and killed, in my haste, a black-tail deer, which 
must have been already roused by the passage of 
the wounded elk. I at once took up the trail of the 
latter again, but after a little while the blood grew 
less, and ceased, and I lost the track; nor could 
I find it, hunt as hard as I might. The poor beast 
could not have gone five hundred yards; yet we 
never found the carcass. 

Then I walked slowly back past the deer I had 
slain by so curious a mischance, to the elk. The 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 313 

first one shot down was already dead. The second 
was only wounded, though it could not rise. When 
it saw us coming it sought to hide from us by laying 
its neck flat on the ground, but when we came up 
close it raised its head and looked proudly at us, 
the heavy mane bristling up on the neck, while its 
eyes glared and its teeth grated together. I felt 
really sorry to kill it. Though these were both well- 
grown elks, their antlers, of ten points, were small, 
twisted, and ill-shaped; in fact hardly worth pre- 
serving, except to call to mind a chase in which 
during a few minutes I did as much downright 
hard work as it has often fallen to my lot to do. 
The burnt earth had blackened our faces and hands 
till we looked like negroes. 

The bull elk had at this time begun calling, and 
several times they were heard right round camp at 
night, challenging one another or calling to the 
cows. Their calling is known to hunters as "whis- 
tling" ; but this is a most inappropriate name for it. 
It is a most singular and beautiful sound, and is very 
much the most musical cry uttered by any four- 
footed beast. When heard for the first time it is 
almost impossible to believe that it is the call of an 
animal ; it sounds far more as if made by an ^Eolian 
harp or some strange wind instrument. It consists 
of quite a series of notes uttered continuously, in a 
most soft, musical, vibrant tone, so clearly that they 
can be heard half a mile off. Heard in the clear, 
frosty moonlight from the depths of the rugged and 
forest-clad mountains the effect is most beautiful; 

N Vol. IV. 



3H Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

for its charm is heightened by the wild and deso- 
late surroundings. It has the sustained, varied mel- 
ody of some bird songs, with, of course, a hundred- 
fold greater power. Now and then, however, the 
performance is marred by the elk's apparently get- 
ting out of breath toward the close, and winding up 
with two or three gasping notes which have an un- 
pleasantly mule-like sound. 

The great pine-clad mountains, their forests 
studded with open glades, were the best of places 
for the still - hunter's craft. Going noiselessly 
through them in our dull-colored buckskin and noise- 
less moccasins, we kept getting glimpses, as it were, 
of the inner life of the mountains. Each animal 
that we saw had its own individuality. Aside 
from the thrill and tingle that a hunter experiences 
at the sight of his game, I by degrees grew to feel 
as if I had a personal interest in the different traits 
and habits of the wild creatures. The characters of 
the animals differed widely, and the differences were 
typified by their actions; and it was pleasant to 
watch them in their own homes, myself unseen, 
when after stealthy, silent progress through the 
sombre and soundless depths of the woods I came 
upon them going about the ordinary business of 
their lives. The lumbering, self-confident gait of 
the bears, their burly strength, and their half-humor- 
ous, half-ferocious look, gave me a real insight into 
their character ; and I never was more impressed by 
the exhibition of vast, physical power, than when 
watching from an ambush a grisly burying or cov- 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 315 

ering up an elk carcass. His motions looked awk- 
ward, but it was marvelous to see the ease and ab- 
sence of effort with which he would scoop out 
great holes in the earth, or twitch the heavy carcass 
from side to side. And the proud, graceful, half- 
timid, half-defiant bearing of the elk was in its own 
way quite as noteworthy; they seemed to glory in 
their own power and beauty, and yet to be ever on 
the watch for foes against whom they knew they 
might not dare to contend. The true still-hunter 
should be a lover of nature as w^ell as of sport, or he 
will miss half the pleasure of being in the woods. 

The finest bull, with the best head that I got, was 
killed in the midst of very beautiful and grand sur- 
roundings. We had been hunting through a great 
pine wood which ran up to the edge of a broad 
canyon-like valley bounded by sheer walls of rock. 
There were fresh tracks of elk about, and we had 
been advancing up wind with even more than our 
usual caution when, on stepping out into a patch of 
open ground, near the edge of the cliff, we came 
upon a great bull, beating and thrashing his antlers 
against a young tree, about eighty yards off. He 
stopped and faced us for a second, his mighty ant- 
lers thrown in the air, as he held his head aloft. 
Behind him towered the tall and sombre pines, while 
at his feet the jutting crags overhung the deep chasm 
below, that stretched off between high walls of bar- 
ren and snow-streaked rocks, the evergreens cling- 
ing to their sides, while along the bottom the rapid 
torrent gathered in places into black and sullen 



3i6 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

mountain lakes. As the bull turned to run I struck 
him just behind the shoulder; he reeled to the 
death-blow, but staggered gamely on a few rods 
into the forest before sinking to the ground, with 
my second bullet through his lungs. 

Two or three days later than this I killed another 
bull, nearly as large, in the same patch of woods in 
which I had slain the first. A bear had been feed- 
ing on the carcass of the latter, and, after a vain 
effort to find his den, we determined to beat through 
the woods and try to start him up. Accordingly, 
Merrifield, the teamster, and myself took parallel 
courses some three hundred yards apart, and started 
at one end to walk through to the other. I doubt 
if the teamster much wished to meet a bear alone 
(while nothing would have given Merrifield more 
hearty and unaffected enjoyment than to have en- 
countered an entire family), and he gradually edged 
in pretty close to me. Where the woods became 
pretty open I saw him suddenly lift his rifle and 
fire, and immediately afterward a splendid bull elk 
trotted past in front of me, evidently untouched, 
the teamster having missed. The elk ran ^o the 
other side of two trees that stood cl'ose together 
some seventy yards ofi, and stopped for a moment 
to look round. Kneeling down I fired at the only 
part of his body I could see between the two trees, 
and sent a bullet into his flank. Away he went, and 
I after, running in my moccasins over the moss and 
pine needles for all there was in me. If a wounded 
elk gets fairly started he will go at a measured trot 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 317 

for many hours, and even if mortally hurt may run 
twenty miles before falHng; while at the same time 
he does not start off at full speed, and will often give 
an active hunter a chance for another shot as he 
turns and changes his course preparatory to taking 
a straight line. So I raced along after the elk at 
m}^ very best speed for a few hundred feet, and then 
got another shot as he went across a little glade, 
injuring his hip somewhat. This made it all right 
for me, and another hundred yards' burst took me 
up to where I was able to put a ball in a fatal spot, 
and the grand old fellow sank down and fell over 
on his side. 

No sportsman can ever feel much keener pleasure 
and self-satisfaction than when, after a successful 
stalk and good shot, he walks up to a grand elk 
lying dead in the cool shade of the great evergreens, 
and looks at the massive and yet finely molded form, 
and at the mighty antlers which are to serve in the 
future as the trophy and proof of his successful skill 
Still-hunting the elk on the mountains is as noble a 
kind of sport as can well be imagined ; there is noth- 
ing more pleasant and enjoyable, and at the same 
time it demands that the hunter shall bring into play 
many manly qualities. There have been few days 
of my hunting life that were so full of unalloyed 
happiness as were those spent on the Bighorn range. 
From morning till night I was on foot, in cool, brac- 
ing air, now moving silently through the vast, mel- 
ancholy pine forests, now treading the brink of high, 
rocky precipices, always amid the most grand and 



31 8 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

beautiful scenery; and always after as noble and 
lordly game as is to be found in the Western world. 

Since writing the above I killed an elk near my 
ranch; probably the last of his race that will ever 
be found in our neighborhood. It was just before 
the fall round-up. An old hunter, who was under 
some obligation to me, told me that he had shot a 
cow elk and had seen the tracks of one or two others 
not more than twenty-five miles off, in a place where 
the cattle rarely wandered. Such a chance w^as not 
to be neglected; and, on the first free day, one of 
my Elkhorn foremen, Will Dow by name, and my- 
self, took our hunting horses and started off, ac- 
companied by the ranch wagon, in the direction of 
the probable haunts of the doomed deer. Toward 
nightfall we struck a deep spring pool, near by the 
remains of an old Indian encampment. It was at 
the head of a great basin, several miles across, in 
which we believed the game to lie. The wagon 
was halted and we pitched camp; there was plenty 
of dead wood, and soon the venison steaks were 
broiling over the coals raked from beneath the 
crackling Cottonwood logs, while in the narrow val- 
ley the ponies grazed almost within the circle of the 
flickering firelight. It Avas in the cool and pleasant 
month of September; and long after going to bed 
we lay awake under the blankets watching the stars 
that on clear nights always shine with such intense 
brightness over the lonely \Vestern plains. 

We were up and off by the gray of the morning. 
It was a beautiful hunting day; the sundogs hung 



Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 319 

in the red dawn; the wind hardly stirred over the 
crisp grass; and though the sky was cloudless, yet 
the weather had that queer, smoky, hazy look that 
it is most apt to take on during the time of the In- 
dian summer. From a high spur of the tableland we 
looked out far and wide over a great stretch of 
broken country, the brown of whose hills and val- 
leys was varied everywhere by patches of dull red 
and vivid yellow, tokens that the trees were already 
putting on the dress with which they greet the mor- 
tal ripening of the year. The deep and narrow but 
smooth ravines running up toward the edges of the 
plateaus were heavily wooded, the bright green tree- 
tops rising to a height they rarely reach in the bar- 
ren plains country; and the rocky sides of the sheer 
gorges were clad with a thick growth of dwarfed 
cedars, while here and there the trailing Virginia 
creepers burned crimson among their sombre masses. 
We hunted stealthily up-wind, across the line of 
the heavily timbered coulies. We soon saw traces 
of our quarry ; old tracks at first, and then the fresh 
footprints of a single elk — a bull, judging by the 
size — which had come down to drink at a miry 
alkali pool, its feet slipping so as to leave the marks 
of the false hoofs in the soft soil. We hunted with 
painstaking and noiseless care for many hours; at 
last, as I led old Manitou up to look over the edge 
of a narrow ravine, there was a crash and move- 
ment in the timber below me, and immediately after- 
ward I caught a glimpse of a great bull elk trotting 
up through the young trees as he gallantly breasted 



320 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

the steep hillside opposite. When clear of the woods, 
and directly across the valley from me, he stopped 
and turned half round, throwing his head in the 
air to gaze for a moment at the intruder. My bul- 
let struck too far back, but, nevertheless, made a 
deadly wound, and the elk went over the crest of 
the hill at a wild, plunging gallop. We followed 
the bloody trail for a quarter of a mile, and found 
him dead in a thicket. Though of large size, he yet 
had but small antlers, with few points. 



CHAPTER X 

OLD EPHRAIM 

BUT few bears are found in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of my ranch ; and though I have once 
or twice seen their tracks in the Bad Lands, I have 
never had any experience with the animals them- 
selves except during the elk-hunting trip on the 
Bighorn Mountains, described in the preceding 
chapter. 

The grisly bear undoubtedly comes in the cate- 
gory of dangerous game, and is, perhaps, the only 
animal in the United States that can be fairly so 
placed, unless we count the few jaguars found north 
of the Rio Grande. But the danger of hunting the 
grisly has been greatly exaggerated, and the sport 
is certainly very much safer than it was at the be- 
ginning of this century. The first hunters who came 
into contact with this great bear were men belong- 
ing to that hardy and adventurous class of back- 
woodsmen which had filled the wild country between 
the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi. 
These men carried but one weapon: the long-bar- 
reled, small-bored pea-rifle, whose bullets ran sev- 
enty to the pound, the amount of powder and lead 
being a little less than that contained in the cartridge 
of a thirty-two calibre Winchester. In the Eastern 

(321) 



322 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

States almost all the hunting was done in the wood- 
land; the shots were mostly obtained at short dis- 
tance, and deer and black bear were the largest 
game; moreover, the pea-rifles were marvelously 
accurate for close range, and their owners were 
famed the world over for their skill as marksmen. 
Thus these rifles had so far proved plenty good 
enough for the work they had to do, and indeed had 
done excellent service as military weapons in the fe- 
rocious wars that the men of the border carried on 
w4th their Indian neighbors, and even in conflict 
with more civilized foes, as at the battles of King's 
Mountain and New Orleans. But when the restless 
frontiersmen pressed out over the Western plains, 
they encountered in the grisly a beast of far greater 
bulk and more savage temper than any of those 
found in the Eastern woods, and their small-bore 
rifles were utterly inadequate weapons with which 
to cope with him. It is small wonder that he was 
considered by them to be almost invulnerable, and 
extraordinarily tenacious of life. He would be a 
most unpleasant antagonist now to a man armed 
only with a thirty-two calibre rifle, that carried but 
a single shot and was loaded at the muzzle. A 
rifle, to be of use in this sport, should carry a ball 
weighing from half an ounce to an ounce. With 
the old pea-rifles the shot had to be in the eye or 
heart ; and accidents to the hunter were very com- 
mon. But the introduction of heavy breech-load- 
ing repeaters has greatly lessened the danger, even 
in the very few and far-of¥ places where the grislies 



Old Ephraim 323 

are as ferocious as formerly. For nowadays these 
great bears are undoubtedly much better aware of 
the death-dealing power of men, and, as a conse- 
quence, much less fierce, than was the case with their 
forefathers, who so unhesitatingly attacked the early 
Western travelers and explorers. Constant contact 
with rifle-carrying hunters, for a period extending 
over many generations of bear-life, has taught the 
grisly, by bitter experience, that man is his un- 
doubted overlord, as far as fighting goes; and this 
knowledge has become a hereditary characteristic. 
No grisly will assail a man now unprovoked, and 
one will almost always rather run than fight ; though 
if he is wounded or thinks himself cornered he will 
attack his foes with a headlong, reckless fury that 
renders him one of the most dangerous of wild 
beasts. The ferocity of all wild animals depends 
largely upon the amount of resistance they are ac- 
customed to meet with, and the quantity of moles- 
tation to which they are subjected. 

The change in the grisly's character during the 
last half century has been precisely paralleled by the 
change in the characters of his Northern cousin, the 
polar bear, and of the South African lion. When 
the Dutch and Scandinavian sailors first penetrated 
the Arctic seas, they were kept in constant dread of 
the white bear, who regarded a man as simply an 
erect variety of seal, quite as good eating as the 
common kind. The records of these early explorers 
are filled with examples of the ferocious and man- 
eating propensities of the polar bears; but in the 



324 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

accounts of most of the later Arctic expeditions 
they are portrayed as having learned wisdom, and 
being now most anxious to keep out of the way of 
the hunters. A number of my sporting friends have 
killed white bears, and none of them were ever even 
charged. And in South Africa the English sports- 
men and Dutch Boers have taught the lion to be a 
very different creature from what it was when the 
first white man reached that continent. If the In- 
dian tiger had been a native of the United States, 
it would now be one of the most shy of beasts. Of 
late years our estimate of the grisly's ferocity has 
been lowered; and we no longer accept the tales of 
uneducated hunters as being proper authority by 
which to judge it. But we should make a parallel 
reduction in the cases of many foreign animals and 
their describers. Take, for example, that purely 
melodramatic beast, the North African lion, as por- 
trayed by Jules Gerard, who bombastically describes 
himself as "le tueur des Hons." Gerard's accounts 
are self-evidently in large part fictitious, while if 
true they would prove less for the bravery of the 
lion than for the phenomenal cowardice, incapacity, 
and bad marksmanship of the Algerian Arabs. 
Doubtless Gerard was a great hunter ; but so is many 
a Western plainsman, whose account of the grislies 
he has killed would be wholly untrustworthy. Take 
for instance the following from page 223 of ''La 
Chasse au Lion" : "The inhabitants had assembled 
one day to the number of two or three hundred with 
the object of killing (the lion) or driving it out of 



Old Ephraim ;^2^ 

the country. The attack took place at sunrise; at 
midday five hundred cartridges had been expended ; 
the Arabs carried off one of their number dead and 
six wounded, and the Hon remained master of the 
field of battle." Now, if three hundred men could 
fire five hundred shots at a lion without hurting 
him, it merely shows that they were wholly incapa- 
ble of hurting an}i:hing, or else that M. Gerard was 
more expert with the long-bow than with the rifle. 
Gerard's whole book is filled with equally prepos- 
terous nonsense; yet a great many people seriously 
accept this same book as trustworthy authority for 
the manners and ferocity of the North African lion. 
It would be quite as sensible to accept M. Jules 
Verne's stories as being valuable contributions to 
science. A good deal of the lion's reputation is built 
upon just such stuff. 

How the prowess of the grisly compares with that 
of the lion or tiger would be hard to say; I have 
never shot either of the latter myself, and my 
brother, who has killed tigers in India, has never 
had a chance at a grisly. Any one of the big bears 
we killed on the mountains would, I should think, 
have been able to make short work of either a lion 
or a tiger ; for the grisly is greatly superior in bulk 
and muscular power to either of the great cats, and 
its teeth are as large as theirs, while its claws, though 
blunter, are much longer ; nevertheless, I believe that 
a lion or a tiger would be fully as dangerous to a 
hunter or other human being, on account of the su- 
perior speed of its charge, the lightning-like rapidity 



3^6 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

of its movements, and its apparently sharper senses. 
Still, after all is said, the man should have a thor- 
oughly trustworthy weapon and a fairly cool head 
who would follow into his own haunts and slay grim 
Old Ephraim. 

A grisly will only fight if wounded or cornered, 
or, at least, if he thinks himself cornered. If a man 
by accident stumbles on to one close up, he is almost 
certain to be attacked really more from fear than 
from any other motive ; exactly the same reason that 
makes a rattlesnake strike at a passerby. I have 
personally known of but one instance of a grisly 
turning on a hunter before being wounded. This 
happened to a friend of mine, a Calif ornian ranch- 
man, who, with two or three of his men, was fol- 
lowing a bear that had carried off one of his sheep. 
They got the bear into a cleft in the mountain from 
which there was no escape, and he suddenly charged 
back through the line of his pursuers, struck down 
one of the horsemen, seized the arm of the man in 
his jaws and broke it as if it had been a pipe-stem, 
and was only killed after a most lively fight, in 
which, by repeated charges, he at one time drove 
every one of his assailants off the field. 

But two instances have come to my personal 
knowledge where a man has been killed by a grisly. 
One was that of a hunter at the foot of the Bighorn 
Mountains who had chased a large bear and finally 
wounded him. The animal turned at once and 
came straight at the man, whose second shot missed. 
The bear then closed and passed on, after striking 



Old Ephraim 327 

only a single blow ; yet that one blow, given with all 
the power of its thick, immensely muscular forearm, 
armed with nails as strong as so many hooked steel 
spikes, tore out the man's collar-bone and snapped 
through three or four ribs. He never recovered 
from the shock, and died that night. 

The other instance occurred to a neighbor of mine 
— who has a small ranch on the Little Missouri — 
two or three years ago. He was out on a mining- 
trip, and was prospecting with two other men near 
the headwaters of the Little Missouri, in the Black 
Hills country. They were walking down along 
the river, and came to a point of land, thrust out 
into it, which was densely covered with brush and 
fallen timber. Two of the party walked round by 
the edge of the stream ; but the third, a German, and 
a very powerful fellow, followed a well-beaten game 
trail, leading through the bushy point. When they 
were some forty yards apart the two men heard an 
agonized shout from the German, and at the same 
time the loud coughing growl, or roar, of a bear. 
They turned just in time to see their companion 
struck a terrible blow on the head by a grisly, which 
must have been roused from its lair by his almost 
stepping on it; so close was it that he had no time 
to fire his rifle, but merely held it up over his head 
as a guard. Of course it was struck down, the 
claws of the great brute at the same time shattering 
his skull like an egg-shell. Yet the man staggered 
on some ten feet before he fell ; but when he did he 
never spoke or moved again. The two others killed 



328 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

the bear after a short, brisk struggle, as he was in 
the midst of a most determined charge. 

In 1872, near Fort Wingate, New Mexico, two 
soldiers of a cavalry regiment came to their death 
at the claws of a grisly bear. The army surgeon 
who attended them told me the particulars, as far as 
they were known. The men were mail carriers, and 
one day did not come in at the appointed time. Next 
day, a relief party was sent out to look for them, and 
after some search found the bodies of both, as well 
as that of one of the horses. One of the men still 
showed signs of life; he came to his senses before 
dying, and told the story. They had seen a grisly 
and pursued it on horseback, with their Spencer 
rifles. On coming close, one had fired into its side, 
when it turned with marvelous quickness for so large 
and unwieldy an animal, and struck down the horse, 
at the same time inflicting a ghastly wound on the 
rider. The other man dismounted and came up to 
the rescue of his companion. The bear then left the 
latter and attacked the other. Although hit by the 
bullet, it charged home and threw the man down, 
and then lay on him and deliberately bit him to 
death, while his groans and cries were frightful to 
hear. Afterward it walked off into the bushes with- 
out again offering to molest the already mortally 
wounded victim of its first assault. 

At certain times the grisly works a good deal of 
havoc among the herds of the stockmen. A friend 
of mine, a ranchman in Montana, told me that one 
fall bears became very plenty around his ranches, 



Old Ephraim 329 

and caused him severe loss, killing with ease even 
full-grown beef-steers. But one of them once found 
his intended quarry too much for him. My friend 
had a stocky, rather vicious range stallion, which had 
been grazing one day near a small thicket of bushes, 
and, toward evening, came galloping in with three 
or four gashes in his haunch, that looked as if they 
had been cut with a dull axe. The cowboys knew 
at once that he had been assailed by a bear, and rode 
off to the thicket near which he had been feeding. 
Sure enough a bear, evidently in a very bad temper, 
sallied out as soon as the thicket was surrounded, 
and, after a spirited fight and a succession of 
charges, was killed. On examination, it was found 
that his under jaw was broken, and part of his face 
smashed in, evidently by the stallion's hoofs. The 
horse had been feeding when the bear leaped out at 
him but failed to kill at the first stroke; then the 
horse lashed out behind, and not only freed himself, 
but also severely damaged his opponent. 

Doubtless, the grisly could be hunted to advan- 
tage with dogs, which would not, of course, be ex- 
pected to seize him, but simply to find and bay him, 
and distract his attention by barking- and nipping. 
Occasionally a bear can be caught in the open and 
killed with the aid of horses. But nine times out of 
ten the only way to get one is to put on moccasins 
and still-hunt it in Its own haunts, shooting it at 
close quarters. Either Its tracks should be followed 
until the bed wherein It lies during the day is found, 
or a given locality In which it is known to exist 



330 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

should be carefully beaten through, or else a bait 
should be left out and a watch kept on it to catch 
the bear when he has come to visit it. 

For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn 
range we did not come across any grisly. 

Although it was still early in September, the 
weather was cool and pleasant, the nights being 
frosty; and every two or three days there was a 
flurry of light snow, which rendered the labor of 
tracking much more easy. Indeed, throughout our 
stay on the mountains, the peaks were snow-capped 
almost all the time. Our fare was excellent, con- 
sisting of elk venison, mountain grouse, and small 
trout; the last caught in one of the beautiful little 
lakes that lay almost up by timber line. To us, 
who had for weeks been accustomed to make small 
fires from dried brush, or from sage-brush roots, 
which we dug out of the ground, it was a treat to 
sit at night before the roaring and crackling pine 
logs ; as the old teamster quaintly put it, we had at 
last come to a land "where the wood grew on trees." 
There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods, 
and we came across a number of bands of cow and 
calf elk, or of young bulls ; but after several days' 
hunting, we were still without any head worth tak- 
ing home, and had seen no sign of grisly, which 
was the game we were especially anxious to kill ; for 
neither Merrifield nor I had ever seen a wild bear 
alive. 

Sometimes we hunted in company ; sometimes each 



Old Ephraim 331 

of us went out alone; the teamster, of course, re- 
maining in to guard camp and cook. One day we 
had separated; I reached camp early in the after- 
noon, and waited a couple of hours before Merri- 
field put in an appearance. 

At last I heard a shout — the familiar long-drawn 
Eikoh-h-h of the cattlemen, — and he came in sight 
galloping at speed down an open glade, and waving 
his hat, evidently having had good luck; and when 
he reined in his small, wiry cow-pony, we saw that 
he had packed behind his saddle the fine, glossy pelt 
of a black bear. Better still, he announced that he 
had been off about ten miles to a perfect tangle of 
ravines and valleys where bear sign was very thick ; 
and not of black bear either, but of grisly. The 
black bear (the only one we got on the mountains) 
he had run across by accident, while riding up a val- 
ley in which there was a patch of dead timber 
grown up with berry bushes. He noticed a black 
object which he first took to be a stump ; for during 
the past few days we had each of us made one or 
two clever stalks up to charred logs which our 
imagination converted into bears. On coming 
near, however, the object suddenly took to it heels ; 
he followed over frightful ground at the pony's best 
pace, until it stumbled and fell down. By this time 
he was close on the bear, which had just reached 
the edge of the wood. Picking himself up, he 
rushed after it, hearing it growling ahead of him; 
after running some fifty yards the sound stopped, 
and he stood still listening. He saw and heard 



33"^ Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

nothing, until he happened to cast his eyes upward, 
and there was the bear, almost overhead, and about 
twenty-five feet up a tree; and in as many seconds 
afterward it came down to the ground with a 
bounce, stone dead. It was a young bear, in its sec- 
ond year, and had probably never before seen a man, 
which accounted for the ease with which it was 
treed and taken. One minor result of the encounter 
was to convince Merrifield — the list of whose faults 
did not include lack of self-confidence — that he could 
run down any bear; in consequence of which idea 
we on more than one subsequent occasion went 
through a good deal of violent exertion. 

Merrifield's tale made me decide to shift camp 
at once, and go over to the spot where the bear- 
tracks were so plenty. Next morning we were off, 
and by noon pitched camp by a clear brook, in a val- 
ley with steep, wooded sides, but with good feed for 
the horses in the open bottom. We rigged the can- 
vas wagon sheet into a small tent, sheltered by the 
trees from the wind, and piled great pine logs near 
by where we wished to place the fire; for a night 
camp in the sharp fall weather is cold and dreary 
unless there is a roaring blaze of flame in front of 
the tent. 

That afternoon we again went out, and I shot a 
fine bull elk. I came home alone toward nightfall, 
walking through a reach of burned forest, where 
there was nothing but charred tree-trunks and black 
mould. When nearly through it T came across the 
huge, half -human footprints of a great grisly, which 



Old Ephraim ^33 

must have passed by within a few minutes. It gave 
me rather an eerie feeling in the silent, lonely woods, 
to see for the first time the unmistakable proofs that 
I was in the home of the mighty lord of the wilder- 
ness. I followed the tracks in the fading twilight 
until it became too dark to see them any longer, 
and then shouldered my rifle and walked back to 
camp. 

That evening we almost had a visit from one of 
the animals we were after. Several times we had 
heard at night the musical calling of the bull elk — 
a sound to which no writer has as yet done justice. 
This particular night, when we were in bed and the 
fire was smouldering, we were roused by a ruder 
noise — a kind of grunting or roaring whine, an- 
swered by the frightened snorts of the ponies. It 
was a bear which had evidently not seen the fire, 
as it came from behind the bank, and had probably 
been attracted by the smell of the horses. After it 
made out what we were it stayed round a short 
while, again uttered its peculiar roaring grunt, and 
went off; we had seized our rifles and had run out 
into the woods, but in the darkness could see noth- 
ing; indeed it was rather lucky we did not stumble 
across the bear, as he could have made short work 
of us when we were at such a disadvantage. 

Next day we w^ent off on a long tramp through 
the woods and along the sides of the canyons. There 
were plenty of berry bushes growing in clusters ; and 
all around these there were fresh tracks of bear. 
But the grisly is also a flesh-eater, and has a great 



334 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

liking for carrion. On visiting the place where 
Merrifield had killed the black bear, we found that 
the grislies had been there before us, and had ut- 
terly devoured the carcass, with cannibal relish. 
Hardly a scrap was left, and we turned our steps to- 
ward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It was 
quite late in the afternoon when we reached the 
place. A grisly had evidently been at the carcass 
during the preceding night, for his great footprints 
were in the ground all around it, and the carcass it- 
self was gnawed and torn, and partially covered 
with earth and leaves— for the grisly has a curious 
habit of burying all of his prey that he does not at 
the moment need. A great many ravens had been 
feeding on the body, and they wheeled about over 
the tree-tops above us, uttering their barking croaks. 
The forest was composed mainly of what are 
called ridge-pole pines, which grow close together, 
and do not branch out until the stems are thirty or 
forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees 
we walked over a carpet of pine needles, upon which 
our moccasined feet made no sound. The woods 
seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken 
now and then by the strange noises always to be 
heard in the great forests, and which seem to mark 
the sad and everlasting unrest of the wilderness. 
We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree which 
had toppled over until its upper branches struck in 
the limb crotch of another, that thus supported it 
at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the 
ground far enough to prevent the bear's smelling 



Old Ephraim 33s 

us, we sat still to wait for his approach ; until, in the 
gathering gloom, we could no longer see the sights 
of our rifles, and could but dimly make out the car- 
cass of the great elk. It was useless to wait longer ; 
and we clambered down and stole out to the edge 
of the woods. The forest here covered one side of 
a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose other side 
was bare except of rock and sage brush. Once out 
from under the trees there was still plenty of light, 
although the sun had set, and we crossed over some 
fifty yards to the opposite hillside, and crouched 
down under a bush to see if perchance some animal 
might not also leave the cover. To our right the 
ravine sloped downward toward the valley of the 
Bighorn River, and far on its other side we could 
catch a glimpse of the great main chain of the Rock- 
ies, their snow peaks glinting crimson in the light of 
the set sun. Again we waited quietly in the grow- 
ing dusk until the pine trees in our front blended 
into one dark, frowning mass. We saw nothing; 
but the wild creatures of the forest had begun to 
stir abroad. The owls hooted dismally from the 
tops of the tall trees, and two or three times a harsh 
wailing cry, probably the voice of some lynx or 
wolverine, arose from the depths of the woods. At 
last, as we were rising to leave, we heard the sound 
of the breaking of a dead stick, from the spot where 
we knew the carcass lay. It was a sharp, sudden 
noise, perfectly distinct from the natural creaking 
and snapping of the branches ; just such a sound as 
would be made by the tread of some heavy creature. 



23^ Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

''Old Ephraim" had come back to the carcass. A 
minute afterward, Hstening with strained ears, we 
heard him brush by some dry twigs. It was en- 
tirely too dark to go in after him; but we made up 
our minds that on the morrow he should be ours. 

Early next morning we were over at the elk car- 
cass, and, as we expected, found that the bear had 
eaten his fill at it during the night. His tracks 
showed him to be an immense fellow, and were so 
fresh that we doubted if he had left long before 
we arrived; and we made up our minds to follow 
him up and try to find his lair. The bears that lived 
on these mountains had evidently been little dis- 
turbed; indeed, the Indians and most of the white 
hunters are rather chary of meddling with ''Old 
Ephraim," as the mountain men style the grisly, 
unless they get him at a disadvantage ; for the sport 
is fraught with some danger and but small profit. 
The bears thus seemed to have very little fear of 
harm, and we thought it likely that the bed of the 
one who had fed on the elk would not be far away. 

My companion was a skilful tracker, and we took 
up the trail at once. For some distance it led over 
the soft, yielding carpet of moss and pine needles, 
and the footprints were quite easily made out, al- 
though we could follow them but slowly ; for we had, 
of course, to keep a sharp lookout ahead and around 
us as we walked noiselessly on in the sombre half- 
light always prevailing under the great pine trees, 
through whose thickly interlacing branches stray 
but few beams of light, no matter how bright the 



Old Ephraim 337 

sun may be outside. We made no sound ourselves, 
and every little sudden noise sent a thrill through 
me as I peered about with each sense on the alert. 
Two or three of the ravens that we had scared from 
the carcass flew overhead, croaking hoarsely; and 
the pine tops moaned and sighed in the slight breeze 
— for pine trees seem to be ever in motion, no mat- 
ter how light the wind. 

After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned 
off on a well-beaten path made by the elk ; the woods 
were in many places cut up by these game trails, 
which had often become as distinct as ordinary 
foot-paths. The beast's footprints were perfectly 
plain in the dust, and he had lumbered along up the 
path until near the middle of the hillside, where the 
ground broke away and there were hollows and 
bowdders. Here there had been a windfall, and the 
dead trees lay among the living, piled across one 
another in all directions ; while between and around 
them sprouted up a thick growth of young spruces 
and other evergreens. The trail turned off into the 
tangled thicket, within which it was almost certain 
we would find our quarry. We could still follow 
the tracks, by the slight scrapes of the claws on the 
bark, or by the bent and broken twigs ; and we ad- 
vanced with noiseless caution, slowly climbing over 
the dead tree trunks and upturned stumps, and not 
letting a branch rustle or catch on our clothes. When 
in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was 
almost a breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield. 
who was leading, passed by the upright stem of a 

O Vol. IV. 



33^ Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

great pine. As soon as he was by it he sank sud- 
denly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly 
aflame with excitement; and as I strode past him, 
with my rifle at the ready, there, not ten steps off, 
was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed 
among the young spruces. He had heard us, but 
apparently hardly knew exactly where or what we 
were, for he reared up on his haunches sidewise to 
us. Then he saw us and dropped down again on 
all fours, the shaggy hair on his neck and shoulders 
seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he 
sank down on his forefeet I had raised the rifle; 
his head was bent sHghtly down, and when I saw 
the top of the white bead fairly between his small, 
glittering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half-rising 
up, the huge beast fell over on his side in the death 
throes, the ball having gone into his brain, striking 
as fairly between the eyes as if the distance had been 
measured by a carpenter's rule. 

The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from 
the time I caught sight of the game; indeed, it was 
over so quickly that the grisly did not have time to 
show fight at all or come a step toward us. It was 
the first I had ever seen, and I felt not a little proud, 
as I stood over the great brindled bulk, which lay 
stretched out at length in the cool shade of the ever- 
greens. He was a monstrous fellow, much larger 
than any I have seen since, whether alive or brought 
in dead by the hunters. As near as we could esti- 
mate (for of course we had nothing with which to 
weigh more than very small portions) he must have 



Old Ephraim 339 

weighed about twelve hundred pounds, and though 
this is not as large as some of his kind are said to 
grow in California, it is yet a very unusual size for 
a bear. He was a good deal heavier than any of 
our horses; and it was with the greatest difficulty 
that we were able to skin him. He must have been 
very old, his teeth and claws being all worn down 
and blunted; but nevertheless he had been living in 
plenty, for he was as fat as a prize hog, the layers 
on his back being a finger's length in thickness. He 
was still in the summer coat, his hair being short, 
and in color a curious brindled brown, somewhat 
like that of certain bull-dogs ; while all the bears we 
shot afterward had the long thick winter fur, cinna- 
mon or yellowish brown. By the way, the name of 
this bear has reference to its character and not to 
its color, and should, I suppose, be properly spelt 
grisly — in the sense of horrible, exactly as we speak 
of a "grisly spectre" — and not grizzly; but perhaps 
the latter way of spelling it is too well established 
to be now changed. 

In killing dangerous game steadiness is more 
needed than good shooting. No game is dangerous 
unless a man is close up, for nowadays hardly any 
wild beast will charge from a distance of a hundred 
yards, but will rather try to run off ; and if a man is 
close it is easy enough for him to shoot straight if 
he does not lose his head. A bear's brain is about 
the size of a pint bottle ; and any one can hit a pint 
bottle offhand at thirty or forty feet. I have had 
two shots at bears at close quarters, and each time I 



340 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

fired into the brain, the bullet in one case striking 
fairly between the eyes, as told above, and in the 
other going in between the eye and ear. A novice 
at this kind of sport will find it best and safest to 
keep in mind the old Norse viking's advice in ref- 
erence to a long sword : "If you go in close enough 
your sword will be long enough." If a poor shot 
goes in close enough he will find that he shoots 
straight enough. 

I was very proud over my first bear; but Merri- 
field's chief feeling seemed to be disappointment that 
the animal had not had time to show fight. He was 
rather a reckless fellow, and very confident in his 
own skill with the rifle; and he really did not seem 
to have any more fear of the grislies than if they 
had been so many jack-rabbits. I did not at all 
share his feelings, having a hearty respect for my 
foes' prowess, and in following and attacking them 
always took all possible care to get the chances on 
my side. Merrifield was sincerely sorry that we 
never had to stand a regular charge; while on this 
trip w*e killed five grislies with seven bullets, and 
except in the case of the she and cub, spoken of 
further on, each was shot about as quickly as it got 
sight of us. The last one we got was an old male, 
which was feeding on an elk carcass. We crept up 
to within about sixty feet, and as Merrifield had not 
yet killed a grisly purely to his own gun, and I had 
killed three, I told him to take the shot. He at 
once whispered gleefully: "I'll break his leg, and 
we'll see what he'll do!" Having no ambition to 



Old Ephraim 341 

be a participator in the antics of a three-legged bear, 
I hastily interposed a most emphatic veto ; and with 
a rather injured air he fired, the bullet going through 
the neck just back of the head. The bear fell to 
the shot, and could not get up from the ground, dy- 
ing in a few minutes; but first he seized his left 
wrist in his teeth and bit clean through it, completely 
separating the bones of the paw and arm. Although 
a smaller bear than the big one I first shot, he would 
probably have proved a much more ugly foe, for he 
was less unwieldy, and had much longer and sharper 
teeth and claws. I think that if my companion had 
merely broken the beast's leg he would have had his 
curiosity as to its probable conduct more than grati- 
fied. 

We tried eating the grisly's flesh, but it was not 
good, being coarse and not well flavored; and, be- 
sides, we could not get over the feeling that it had 
belonged to a carrion feeder. The flesh of the little 
black bear, on the other hand, was excellent; it 
tasted like that of a young pig. Doubtless, if a 
young grisly, which had fed merely upon fruits, ber- 
ries, and acorns, was killed, its flesh would prove 
good eating; but even then, it would probably not 
be equal to a black bear. 

A day or two after the death of the big bear, 
we went out one afternoon on horseback, intending 
merely to ride down to see a great canyon lying 
some six miles west of our camp; indeed, we went 
more to look at the scenery than for any other rea- 
son, though, of course, neither of us ever stirred out 



342 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

of camp without his rifle. We rode down the val- 
ley in which we had camped, through alternate pine 
groves and open glades, until we reached the canyon, 
and then skirted its brink for a mile or so. It was 
a great chasm, many miles in length, as if the table- 
land had been rent asunder by some terrible and 
unknown force; its sides were sheer walls of rock, 
rising three or four hundred feet in the air, and 
worn by the weather till they looked like the towers 
and battlements of some vast fortress. Between 
them at the bottom was a space, in some places nearly 
a quarter of a mile wide, in others very narrow, 
through whose middle foamed a deep, rapid torrent 
of which the sources lay far back among the snow- 
topped mountains around Cloud Peak. In this val- 
ley, dark-green, sombre pines stood in groups, stiff 
and erect; and here and there among them were 
groves of poplar and Cottonwood, with slender 
branches and trembling leaves, their bright green al- 
ready changing to yellow in the sharp fall weather. 
We went down to where the mouth of the canyon 
opened out, and rode our horses to the end of a 
great jutting promontory of rock, thrust out into 
the plain ; and in the cold, clear' air we looked far 
over the broad valley of the Bighorn as it lay at 
our very feet, walled in on the other side by the dis- 
tant chain of the Rocky Mountains. 

Turning our horses, we rode back along the edge 
of another canyon-like valley, with a brook flowing 
down its centre, and its rocky sides covered with an 
uninterrupted pine forest — the place of all others in 



Old Ephraim 343 

whose inaccessible wildness and ruggedness a bear 
would find a safe retreat. After some time we came 
to where other valleys, with steep, grass-grown 
sides, covered with sage brush, branched out from 
it, and we followed one of these out. There was 
plenty of elk sign about, and we saw several black- 
tail deer. These last were very common on the 
mountains, but we had not hunted them at all, as 
we were in no need of meat. But this afternoon we 
came across a buck with remarkably fine antlers, and 
accordingly I shot it, and we stopped to cut off and 
skin out the horns, throwing the reins over the heads 
of the horses and leaving them to graze by them- 
selves. The body lay near the crest of one side of 
a deep valley, or ravine, which headed up on the 
plateau a mile to our left. Except for scattered trees 
and brushes the valley was bare ; but there was heavy 
timber along the crests of the hills on its opposite 
side. It took some time to fix the head prop- 
erly, and we were just ending when Merrifield 
sprang to his feet and exclaimed: *'Look at the 
bears!" pointing down into the valley below us. 
Sure enough there were two bears (which afterward 
proved to be an old she and a nearly full-grown cub) 
traveling up the bottom of the valley, much too far 
off for us to shoot. Grasping our rifles and throw- 
ing off our hats we started off as hard as we could 
run, diagonally down the hillside, so as to cut them 
off. It was some little time before they saw us, 
when they made off at a lumbering gallop up the 
valley. It would seem impossible to run into two 



344 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

grislies in the open, but they were going up hill and 
we down, and, moreover, the old one kept stopping. 
The cub would forge ahead and could probably have 
escaped us, but the mother now and then stopped 
to sit up on her haunches and look round at us, when 
the cub would run back to her. The upshot was 
that we got ahead of them, when they turned and 
went straight up one hillside as we ran straight 
down the other behind them. By this time I was 
pretty nearly done out, for running along the steep 
ground through the sage brush was most exhaust- 
ing work; and Merrifield kept gaining on me and 
was well in front. Just as he disappeared over a 
bank, almost at the bottom of the valley, I tripped 
over a bush and fell full-length. When I got up I 
knew I could never make up the ground I had lost, 
and besides, could hardly run any longer ; Merrifield 
was out of sight below, and the bears were laboring 
up the steep hillside directly opposite and about three 
hundred yards off, so I sat down and began to shoot 
over Merrifield's head, aiming at the big bear. She 
was going very steadily and in a straight line, and 
each bullet sent up a puff of dust where it struck the 
dry soil, so that I could keep correcting my aim ; and 
the fourth ball crashed into the old bear's flank. She 
lurched heavily forward, but recovered herself and 
reached the timber, while Merrifield, who had put 
on a spurt, was not far behind. 

I toiled up the hill at a sort of trot, fairly gasp- 
ing and sobbing for breath; but before I got to the 
top I heard a couple of shots and a shout. The old 



Old Ephraim 345 

bear had turned as soon as she was in the timber, 
and came toward Merrifield, but he gave her the 
death-wound by firing into her chest, and then shot 
at the young one, knocking it over. When I came 
up he was just walking toward the latter to finish it 
with the revolver, but it suddenly jumped up as 
lively as ever and made off at a great pace — for it 
was nearly full-grown. It was impossible to fire 
where the tree trunks were so thick, but there was a 
small opening across which it would have to pass, 
and collecting all my energies I made a last run, got 
into position, and covered the opening with my rifle. 
The instant the bear appeared I fired, and it turned 
a dozen somersaults downhill, rolling over and over ; 
the ball had struck it near the tail and had ranged 
forward through the hollow of the body. Each of 
us had thus given the fatal wound to the bear into 
which the other had fired the first bullet. The run, 
though short, had been very sharp, and over such 
awful country that we were completely fagged out, 
and could hardly speak for lack of breath. The sun 
had already set, and it was too late to skin the ani- 
mals ; so we merely dressed them, caught the ponies 
— with some trouble, for they were frightened at 
the smell of the bear's blood on our hands, — and rode 
home through the darkening woods. Next day we 
brought the teamster and two of the steadiest pack- 
horses to the carcasses, and took the skins into camp. 
The feed for the horses was excellent in the val- 
ley in which we were camped, and the rest after their 
long journey across the plains did them good. They 



34^ Hunting Trips on the Prairie 

had picked up wonderfully in condition during our 
stay on the mountains ; but they were apt to wander 
very far during the night, for there were so many 
bears and other wild beasts around that they kept 
getting frightened and running off. We were very 
loth to leave our hunting grounds, but time was 
pressing, and we had already many more trophies 
than we could carry ; so one cool morning when the 
branches of the evergreens were laden with the 
feathery snow that had fallen overnight, we struck 
camp and started out of the mountains, each of us 
taking his own bedding behind his saddle, while the 
pack-ponies were loaded down with bearskins, elk, 
and deer antlers, and the hides and furs of other 
game. In single file we moved through the woods, 
and across the canyons to the edge of the great table- 
land, and then slowly down the steep slope to its 
foot, where we found our canvas-topped wagon ; and 
next day saw us setting out on our long journey 
homeward, across the three hundred weary miles of 
treeless and barren-looking plains country. 

Last spring, since the above was written, a bear 
killed a man not very far from my ranch. It was 
at the time of the floods. Two hunters came down 
the river, by our ranch, on a raft, stopping to take 
dinner. A score or so of miles below, as we after- 
ward heard from the survivor, they landed, and 
found a bear in a small patch of brushwood. After 
waiting in vain for it to come out, one of the men 
rashly attempted to enter the thicket, and was in- 
stantly struck down by the beast, before he could 



Old Ephraim 347 

so much as fire his rifle. It broke in his skull with 
a blow of its great paw, and then seized his arm in 
its jaws, biting through and through in three places, 
but leaving the body and retreating into the bushes 
as soon as the unfortunate man's companion ap- 
proached. We did not hear of the accident until 
too late to go after the bear, as we were just about 
starting to join the spring round-up. 



ADDENDUM 

In speaking of the trust antelope place in their 
eyesight as a guard against danger, I do not mean 
to imply that their noses are not also very acute; 
it is as important with them as with all other game 
to prevent their getting the hunter's vv^ind. So with 
deer; while their eyes are not as sharp as those of 
big-horn and prong-horn, they are yet quite keen 
enough to make it necessary for the still-hunter to 
take every precaution to avoid being seen. 

Although with us antelope display the most rooted 
objection to entering broken or wooded ground, yet 
a friend of mine, whose experience in the hunting- 
field is many times as great as my own, tells me that 
in certain parts of the country they seem by prefer- 
ence to go among the steepest and roughest places 
(of course, in so doing, being obliged to make ver- 
tical as well as horizontal leaps), and even penetrate 
into thick woods. Indeed, no other species seems 
to show such peculiar "freakiness" of character, both 
individually and locally. 



END OF VOLUME POUR 



(348) 



